


patched-up patchwork taped-up tape deck heart

by inlovewithnight



Category: Bandom, Cobra Starship, Fall Out Boy
Genre: M/M, Recovery, References to Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, References to Drug Use
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-26
Updated: 2013-06-26
Packaged: 2017-12-16 05:21:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 22,017
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/858265
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inlovewithnight/pseuds/inlovewithnight
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Gabe hits bottom in 2010, he hits hard. Warner drops Cobra Starship. He goes to rehab. And when he gets out, his father has hired a sober companion to help him get back on his feet: Pete Wentz.</p>
            </blockquote>





	patched-up patchwork taped-up tape deck heart

**Author's Note:**

> This is loosely an Elementary AU, but nobody becomes a consulting detective. Maybe next year.

The most embarrassing thing about the overdose was that nobody even cared.

"Nobody" being relative, of course. His bandmates cared. The handful of old friends who still give a fuck cared. It didn't get any press, though. No gossip sites. It got blurbs from Alt Press and MTV and slightly-longer blurbs when Warner informed him they were not picking up Cobra's option.

They told him that by letter, delivered by a fucking courier. Like he was being supoened or denied a reprieve. All while he was in the fucking hospital.

The most embarrassing thing – the _worst_ thing about the overdose was his family, the way his father and his brother had to handle everything and take care of him like he was a child. Papi holding a water glass for him while he was stuck in the hospital bed, and then holding the bedpan an hour later, that had to be the worst humiliation. Ricky's face the whole drive to the post-hospital rehab stay, the pure disgust in his eyes and contempt around the mouth, that was a close second.

_Fucking get it together already, Gabe, you're out of next chances._

Yeah, that had to be the worst part. The outside world not caring was one thing. Being a fucked-up burden on his family was something else.

Rehab gave him lots of time to think about that. There was one-on-one therapy, and group therapy, and art therapy, but that still left a lot of time for sitting around staring off into space and making lists of all the ways he'd fucked up. It ends up an emotionless, distant litany, which he knows cuts out the whole point of doing it at all—but fuck, being emotionless is the only way he can think of to deal with this anymore.

He was in the middle of actually writing his shit out as a list the day Travie visited. He wasn't expecting any visitors that day--Papi came on Mondays and Thursdays, which carved gaps into his work schedule that he never mentioned and Gabe couldn't _not_ think about, and nobody else came at all--but he looked up from his list and there was Travie in his doorway with the nurse, smiling at him like it had been a day since they last saw each other instead of a handful of years.

"Am I interrupting?" Travie asked, leaning on the door frame. 

"What are you doing here?"

“Stop it. I can’t handle the outpouring of love.” Travie smiles, but it’s tight around the edges. "I came to say hi. See how you're doing."

"I'm doing a lot of thinking about my life."

"That's what you're doing, not how you're doing."

Gabe shrugged. "I don't think you want the answer to the other one."

"I know the feeling." Travie stepped inside and looked around. "Not a bad place. They feed you decent?"

"There's even a vegetarian option. I'm spoiled."

"Shit. Lucky." Travie nodded at the paper and pen in his hands. "You writing?"

"Ha. No." Gabe folded the paper in half and pushed it away. "It's nothing. A litany of guilt."

"That's not nothing."

"It _means_ nothing. Empty posturing to an uncaring universe."

"Jesus, Saporta, don't do the philosophical thing right now. I've already got a headache."

"I hear you." Gabe rubbed his jaw. "Anyway."

"Not a lot of visitors, huh?"

"My dad, mostly. Ry and Alex and Nate and Vic all called, but they haven't come up."

"Sucks."

"I don't blame them. I did lose them their jobs."

"They'll land on their feet." Travie leaned on the wall and looked at him. "You have a plan yet?"

"What sort of a plan?"

"Don't bullshit me. You're Gabe Saporta. You always have a plan."

Gabe shook his head. "This time, dude, I am fresh out. I'm gonna do my time here, finish it out, and then... I've got no idea."

"Having nothing to do isn't so good for the recovering addict."

"I wasn't an addict." The answer was a reflex by then, he'd spit it out in so many sessions. "I was an excessive partier who crossed a line. Not an addict."

Travie raised his eyebrows. "I see."

"Dude." Gabe pointed the pen at him. "Don't."

"Suit yourself." Travie pushed off the wall and moved to look out the window. "I'm glad your old man's still got your back."

"He seems determined to stick around no matter what I do."

"That's a good thing."

"It's another thing I don't deserve." Gabe twisted the folded paper between his fingers. "Let's talk about something else."

Travie shot him a look that was a little too close to pity for Gabe's taste, but he changed the subject, at least. Small favors.

**

The rehab facility preferred to have someone with their patients when they checked out, so his father drove him back to his apartment. The ride was silent and awkward almost to the point of physical pain. 

Diego lingered for almost an hour, walking around the apartment in purposeless circles until Gabe finally said, "You should get home, Papi. I'll be fine."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes. Very sure."

"You will not..." Diego frowned and gestured. "Go out."

"I might."

"Gabriel..."

"I might go out for food. Or toilet paper. Or just to get some fresh air. I _can_ go out. I'm not in prison."

Diego's face went blank. "I see."

"I hope so." Gabe's voice hurt. Saying this hurt. Of course, fucking everything hurt, all of him. He sounded like a dick, mouthing off to his father, and that hurt, too, but maybe it would get him alone faster and he could be numb.

"I suppose I should go, then."

"Yeah. Please. I'm fine. I'm great."

"You will call me soon?" It was a formal request, asked with a kind of resignation that made it clear that Diego didn't really expect it to happen. The wave of anger and shame that went through Gabe burned like acid.

"Yeah. Definitely. Drive safe, okay? Be careful." He locked the door behind his father with two heavy, solid clicks, and put the chain on just for good measure. Locking his own bullshit feelings out at the same time he locked himself in.

Three hours of silence and solitude later, just when he was starting to think he might crawl out of his skin, someone knocked on the door. Through the peephole, said someone was a short, dark-haired guy with serious eyes and a bag over each shoulder.

"You have the wrong place," Gabe called out. "I'm not expecting anyone."

"Are you Gabe Saporta?"

"Yeah."

"Gabriel Eduardo Saporta?"

"Yes."

"Did you just get home from White Oaks?"

Some part of Gabe's brain, the part not overwhelmed with confusion and annoyance and craving a little anesthesia, was impressed at the phrasing that kept all of his neighbors from knowing his business. "Yes. How do you know that?"

"You're definitely the guy I'm looking for. Can you let me in so we can discuss this in private?"

Echoing his own thoughts that closely was just barely enough for Gabe to unlock the door and let him in. The bags hit his living-room floor with matching thumps and the guy stood up straight, sighing in relief. Gabe absently noted that his arms were inked almost-solid with tattoos, that his smile was wide and pleasant, and that his sneakers were fucking expensive. Then Gabe got to the point. "Who the fuck are you?"

"I'm Pete. Your father hired me."

"Hired you to do what, exactly?"

Gabe's skepticism didn't seem to touch Pete at all. "I'm a sober companion."

"That's not a real thing."

Pete actually laughed. Prick. "My job is to help make the transition from rehab to your normal life routine as smooth as possible. I help you keep your balance."

Gabe stared at him. "That's the biggest bunch of bullshit I've ever heard."

"I'm sorry you feel that way."

"If you're a babysitter, just say you're a babysitter."

"That oversimplifies what I do. Teenagers are babysitters. I trained and studied for this job." He smiled, flashing broad white teeth. "I'm more like an au pair."

It was Gabe's own joke and this guy had managed to ruin it. "I don't have a 'normal life routine' to get back to." He made vicious air quotes around the words. "I'm a musician."

"A pop star. I know."

"Pop star, who says pop star? Are we in England?"

Pete shrugged easily. "I've spent quite a bit of time there."

"Doing what?"

"Being an au pair for pop stars. And rock stars. They have both. There's a difference, you know? And your music, your current music, it definitely falls under pop."

"Fuck you."

"There's no shame in pop music. I love pop music."

"It's not my _current_ music. It's my ex-music. I have no music. I have no contract. I have no band. I have no _job_." He took a shaky breath, startled by his own vehemence. "So that's what I mean by there's no routine for me to get back to."

Pete looked unfazed. Unfazed enough that Gabe wanted to punch him in the face. "I can also help you with making a plan to construct an authentic life."

"Authentic? What... There was nothing inauthentic about the other one. This is more bullshit."

"A sober life. An unmediated life."

"And if I have zero interest in any of this and want you to get the fuck out of my apartment?"

Pete shrugged. "Your father has to pay off my fee in full, for no benefit. And I don't work cheap. So you'll be ripping him off and, I don't think it's much of a stretch to guess, disappointing him kind of a lot."

Someday Gabe would find out how the universe gave away that his father was his soft spot. On that day he would probably fucking kill someone.

"He's very worried about you," Pete added. "In case you didn't know."

"I did. Shut up." Gabe rubbed his face. "I'm going to call him."

"That's fine."

"Oh, thank you for permission," Gabe snapped. "I'd like to do it alone?"

Pete put his hands up and smiled. It was tight enough around the edges that Gabe could tell he was pissing the guy off, but easy enough that he could also tell Pete knew he was winning. Asshole.

"I'll go check out the kitchen," Pete said. "Make a grocery list."

"I'm vegan." Vegetarian, for a while now, but he could be vegan again. This guy didn't know.

"No problem. I've lived vegan before." Pete disappeared down the hall and Gabe took a deep breath before he pulled out his phone. He could do this. He could be calm enough to talk to his already-horribly-disappointed father.

"Gabriel. Como estas, mijo? Is everything all right?" The mingled love and worry in his father's voice hit Gabe right in the gut, twisting up and curdling somewhere around his kidneys. He was a horrible son doing horrible things to his family, the thing he'd been raised to believe in most. He put that fear and strain in his father's voice. His fault. He was lower than shit, basically.

"Mijo? Gabriel! Are you there?"

Gabe snapped back to himself with effort. "Yeah, Papi. I'm here. Sorry about that."

"No problem. Por supuesto." Diego took a deep, careful breath, and Gabe echoed it, wishing it didn't cause such an ache in his chest. "Why have you called? Are you in need?"

"Always need you, Papi," Gabe said without thinking, which made the silence that followed his own fault, too, because what could either of them do with a statement so obviously false and painfully true at once?

"There's a guy here," Gabe went on finally. "At my house. He said you sent him. You hired him to babysit me."

"To help you," Diego said. "This is Pete Wentz, si? He is highly recommended. He has worked with many musicians."

"Papi, I don't need a babysitter."

"He worked with Travis McCoy, do you remember him?"

Gabe frowned at the phone. "Yeah, of course, how do _you_ remember him?"

"He called, when he heard about what happened. He was concerned. He gave me Peter's number."

"Peter? You're on a first-name basis with this guy?"

"He asked me to call him Pete or Peter."

"Of course he did." Gabe rolled his eyes and glared at the wall between him and the kitchen. _Prick_.

"He is very good, Gabriel."

Gabe didn't answer, just turned to look out the window at the stand of winter-killed trees. Saddest fucking things. He knew how they felt, twigs and branches clawing around an empty heart.

"Gabe," Diego said softly. "Please, try. Try this for me. I am asking you, as your father."

"Papi..." Gabe punched the arm of the couch. "How am I supposed to let someone tell me what to do like I'm a little kid?"

"He does not tell you what to do. You work _with_ him. Together, entiendes?"

"Entiendo." Pero no le gusta. "How long did you hire him for?"

"Three months."

_Fuck_. "I'll try. For a month. And then we'll see."

"That is fair." His father sounded so relieved, Gabe wanted to drown himself in guilt and vodka immediately. "In one month we will talk about this again."

Gabe turned his back on the window. "Have you taken your pills today?"

"Do not parent me, Gabriel."

"Answer me and I won't have to."

Diego sighed. "Yes. I have. And now I must go. I have appointments at the office this afternoon. Te amo, mijo."

"Te amo." Gabe hung up and glared down at his phone, transferring the glare to Pete when he came back into the room.

"All you have in your kitchen is bread and cans of black beans," Pete said. "And cheese. So much for vegan."

"Cheese doesn't count."

Pete laughed. "Pretty sure that's not how it works."

"In this house, it is. Get used to it." Gabe tossed his phone down. "Are we going to the store, then?"

"We are. You can show me around your neighborhood. Give me some perspective on it. How you think of your home turf."

"Is every conversation going to be so touchy-feely and introspective and generally making me want to throw up like this?"

"Not all of them. I'd say forty percent."

"Any way I can get that down to thirty?"

Pete shrugged. "Good behavior."

"Shit."

**

Gabe woke up with the blurred, unsettling feeling that he was being watched. His pillow was damp and sticky with spit, and the blanket was twisted up between his legs in a way that threatened to pinch his balls if he moved. On the other hand, he wasn't covered in puke and this was his own bed. He'd had worse mornings. By far.

He lifted his head and squinted around the room in a slow sweep. Fucking feeling of being watched, making his skin crawl...

Pete was standing at the foot of the bed, staring at him.

"Fuck." Gabe turned onto his back, hissing as the blanket did indeed pinch his goddamn junk. "What are you doing in here?"

"It's time to get up."

"Why are you in my room?"

"To wake you up."

"No. Get out." Gabe shook his head and rubbed at his eyes, going through the stages of waking fully despite himself. "You at least have to fucking knock."

"The door was open."

Gabe glared at him through his fingers. "Guess I'm not used to having unwanted house guests."

"Oh, come on. We settled that yesterday." Pete smiled at him, showing a full set of very white teeth. It made Gabe think of werewolves. Or piranhas. Dangerous bitey things.

Except this guy was chest-height on Gabe and looked about as dangerous as a stuffed animal, even with the tattoos. They weren't tough-guy tattoos. They were...body art. Meant to be pretty.

Gabe could grudgingly admit they were pretty. But not out loud. No way. This guy was still an unwanted intruder.

"I'll make coffee," Pete said. "And toast. Maybe oatmeal. I'd make bacon, but, well, the vegan thing. Hard on breakfast."

"I'm Jewish, too," Gabe said coldly. "Bacon is not okay."

"I've known quite a few Jewish guys who disagree."

"Maybe I keep kosher."

"Do you?"

This guy was infuriatingly pleasant. Fuck him. "No. But I could. Maybe that's how I'll reinvent my life."

"That's definitely something to consider. Religion can be a powerful source of strength and comfort in recovery."

"Religion is the opiate of the masses."

"You've either read Marx or a quote-a-day calendar."

Gabe rubbed his eyes again. "I'm an atheist. And I guess I really could use that coffee."

"No problem." Pete stepped back toward the door while Gabe dragged himself to his feet. "We'll set up a rotation of breakfast duties, but I'm happy to take today."

"On my days I guess we'll go to the diner. Or Dunkin'."

"Works for me." Pete started down the hall and Gabe fell in step behind him, glaring at the back of his head and checking his own stride to keep from running the guy over.

"How are you so fucking perky this early?" he asked as they conga'd into the kitchen.

Pete glanced over his shoulder at Gabe. "It's ten AM."

"No."

"Yes."

"What the fuck." For most of his life ten AM was unbearably early; after the schedule at the rehab, it was liesurely. His body had no fucking clue what to do with clocks anymore.

"Welcome to sobriety. I'm fairly well assured that it blows, though my own experience hasn't been all bad."

Gabe leaned on the counter and watched Pete start to measure out the coffee. "You're an addict?"

"No. I was straight edge when I was younger." He held up his arms and Gabe noticed the X's on his wrists, half-woven into the other tattoos. Once he knew what to look for, the were obviously older. Youthful exuberant belief, written on the body so it couldn't be forgotten even after all that faith was gone. A tragedy and love story, in the sense that that was how real love stories always ended. All the faith gone and marks that didn't wash off.

"And then I wasn't," Pete continued, dropping his hands and turning back to the coffee maker. "It never got out of control, though. Not quite. I still have a beer once in a while, even though living in sober homes most of the time means I've really lost the taste for it."

"Beer is disgusting."

Pete raised his eyebrows, gaze still on the coffee maker. "You telling me you'd turn it down right now if there was some in the fridge?"

"There might be a bottle of vodka under my bed. You didn't case the joint."

"Is there?"

Gabe smacked his hand flat against the counter. "Why do you seem to expect me to be honest with you? Addicts lie, you know."

"I've found that the benefit of the doubt can be a powerful thing." Pete stood on his toes to take two mugs out of the cabinet. "Is there vodka under your bed, Gabe?"

"No."

"What about in the toilet tank?"

"No."

"Linen closet?"

"There's no fucking alcohol in the house."

Pete looked up and smiled at him. "Hey, look at that. Benefit of the doubt totally earned."

**

It took Gabe less than six hours to lose all rights to benefit of the doubt. Not his all-time record, but not great, that was for sure.

Pete was in the living room, watching some talk show. Gabe could hear it clearly from his bedroom door, where he was hesitating, halfway between taking his book and joining Pete in the living room where the light was better and lying down to read in bed where he would be alone. It was a tough call.

The thing was, while he was trying to decide, he realized that Pete being in the living room meant Pete's bedroom was unattended. And it wasn't even really Pete's bedroom, was it? It was Gabe's guest room. Part of Gabe's apartment. The room he'd been thinking about making an _office_ , if he ever needed a fucking office. Gabe's property.

He let the book slip from his hand and thump gently to the floor. He was across the narrow hallway and pushing the door open before he gave it another thought.

Pete's bed was made, which surprised him. The guy hadn't struck him as the bed-making type. Not hospital corners or anything, but the blanket was smoothed and tucked in over the pillows. A book and a notebook lay on the bedside table, a pair of glasses folded carefully on top, a pen next to the stack. There was a phone charger on the floor next to the wall outlet. The suitcase and duffel bag Pete had been carrying when he arrived were both on the floor by the closet.

Gabe touched the spine of the book first, lingering over the title. He didn't recognize it. His fingers itched to flip through the notebook, but he just--he couldn't, quite. He'd kept his share of journals over the years. They were little sacred spaces, raw and aflame, and apparently he was an asshole but not _that_ much of one, because he stepped away from the table without opening the notebook.

Nothing else to see around the bed, nothing on top of the dresser. He turned his attention to the suitcase and duffel.

The suitcase was full of neatly folded and stacked t-shirts, sweatshirts, and jeans. Gabe wanted to put them all in the dresser drawers, which were empty and just waiting for something like this, for _clothes_. That was their entire reason for being. They were sitting there all purposeless and Pete was leaving his stuff in his suitcase. Fucking rude.

Rude to Gabe's furniture. Fuck, Gabe needed to get a grip.

The closet door was slightly ajar, enough for him to look up and see a garment bag hanging from the curtain rod. The front was clear plastic, and he could see that it was a suit, complete with dress shirt and tie. Emergency court-appearance wear, in case Gabe took a header off a bridge and Pete had to speak in court about being the last person to see him alive? Or was that overreaching, being morbid?

It was probably morbid.

Duffel bag next. He unzipped it and stuck his hand inside, groping around through socks and underwear until he felt paper and plastic. More books. CDs. Why the hell did the guy travel with CDs instead of just his iPod? Stupid. Gabe frowned and pulled a handful of the plastic cases out into the light. There was a stack of them a few inches thick, at least a dozen cases held together with thick rubber bands. Gabe skimmed the titles, eyebrows going up. Punk, hardcore, an 80s compilation, the first American Nightmare album, _I Brought You My Bullets, You Brought Me Your Love_ , _Thriller_ \--

_Save the World, Lose The Girl_. _Forget What You Know_. _Living Well Is The Best Revenge_.

"What the fuck are you doing?"

Gabe looked up and saw Pete in the doorway, red-faced, hands on his hips.

"Why the fuck are you stealing my things?" Gabe snapped back.

"What? What are you talking about?"

Gabe pulled the three Midtown albums from the band and stood up. "These are my CDs. My music. These are... these are my _bands_ , why the fuck are you stealing my music?"

"I'm not stealing anything! Why are you going through my stuff?"

"It's my apartment! I can go through any stuff I want." Gabe clutched the CDs to his chest. "You stole these from my shelf. In the living room." 

Pete stepped back and gestured down the hall. "Go check your fucking shelf. Your stuff is right where you left it. Those are _mine_."

Gabe stalked to the living room, a sick feeling growing in his stomach that Pete was going to turn out not to be lying. Which of course, he wasn't. And Gabe looked like an asshole, standing there holding those stupid CDs and staring at his own copies, old and dusty and lined up on the shelf like little coffins full of parts of the kid he used to be.

"Sorry," he muttered, not looking at Pete.

"You should be sorry. Give me my stuff."

Gabe held them out blindly, letting his hand drop when Pete took them back. "Why do you have them?"

"Because I fucking loved Midtown." Pete's voice was tight and angry. "I went to every fucking show you had around Chicago. I road-tripped to... everywhere. I loved your stupid band."

"Is that why you took this gig? To see how much I've fucked up since then? That's sick."

"I took this gig because your dad and Travis both fucking begged me to. They said you were going to fucking die if you didn't have someone to help you figure it out, and you wouldn't let either of them do it because you're a stubborn, selfish shithead." 

Gabe glared at him. "I'm gonna assume those are your words, not theirs."

"Not your dad's, no." Pete clutched the CDs to his chest. "I took this job because it was exactly why this is my career. Because it was helping someone. I do this to help. You don't want my help? Fine. I get that. You've made it clear. But I'm going to keep offering it until you specifically and explicitly throw me out and your dad agrees to terminate the contract, because helping people is _what I do_. Even when they're total assholes."

"I am a total asshole."

"I know that."

"You're the only person still in my life who gets that. Everyone else keeps trying to absolve me." Gabe shook his head and stepped past Pete toward the door. "I'm just gonna..."

"Yes. Please."

The door slammed shut behind Gabe hard enough to make the floor vibrate. He retreated into his own room, closing that door behind him more quietly and then lying down on the bed, staring at the ceiling and letting nausea roll through him in slow, horrible waves. Fuck. His fucking life.

Building things and burning them down. Asking people to love him, luring them in with lies, then spitting in their faces.

Those were all he knew how to do, and he didn't have the magic to do them anymore. So what the fuck was left?

He flipped over onto his stomach and pressed his face into the pillow, silently begging the aching pit in his stomach to go the fuck away and stop answering his question with _nothing_.

**

The evening stretched out into unbearable tension, with Gabe in his bedroom and Pete probably shut away in the guest room. Gabe didn't dare check. He wasn't good at the consequences of making a fool of himself. Not even now when he should probably be getting used to it given that it seemed to be his new career path.

Later in the evening he heard Pete moving around in the kitchen, water running and cabinets opening and closing. He stayed very still, staring up at the ceiling over his bed, picturing Pete choosing a bowl and spoon, or a plate and fork, or-- whatever went with whatever he was eating. Gabe's stomach was grumbling, but not enough to overcome his sincere need to remain in hiding. Even when Pete's footsteps came down the hall and the guest room door clicked closed, Gabe couldn't bring himself to move. He could be hungry in penance.

That didn't last in the morning, though, when he woke up to find the door still closed, the kitchen empty, and the abrupt but distinct memory of Pete saying they would alternate on getting breakfast ready.

He had promised Dunkin and he meant it. Fuck cooking.

He took the keys and walked the three blocks to the nearest one, waited in line much longer than a half-dozen doughnuts and two coffees were worth, and walked home again. He ate his breakfast in the living room, one eye on the television for plausible deniability and the other glancing down the hall toward the bedrooms.

The TV was off, to keep from disturbing Pete, which probably damaged his claim to plausible anything, but whatever. He was trying. Principle of the thing.

He finished his coffee and two doughnuts without any sign from Pete. Pete's coffee had to be cold as a stone now, but there wasn't much Gabe could do about that. He looked consideringly at the doughnuts, told himself he didn't need a third, and picked up his keys again.

He walked to the corner and called his dad, squinting up at the dull sky and wishing he'd brought sunglasses. All he had was his keys, his wallet, and the clothes on his back. Couldn't make a getaway even if he had somewhere to go. 

"Hola? Quien es?"

"It's me, Papi. Gabe."

"Gabe. Everything is all right?"

"Everything's fine. I'm fine. Thinking of taking the train down and buying you lunch."

"That's very kind of you." Gabe fucking hated how confused and wary his dad sounded at that very concept. "You and Peter?"

"No. Just me."

"I thought he is meant to accompany you."

"I'm not going to go on a drug binge between here and Jersey City. Fuck, Papi."

"Language."

Gabe pressed the heel of his hand against his eyes, fighting back the dull wave of anger that he never had figured out how to live with. He caged it with restless teenage mania, and when he grew out of that being either cute or bearable he pushed it back with booze and then booze and pills and now it just sat in his chest, waiting to heat up every so often and try to explode out his fucking eyeballs.

"Forget it," he said, trying to keep his voice light. "Just an idea."

"A good idea. I want to see you."

Gabe pressed his hand harder against his eyes, trying to keep his voice from breaking. "You almost sound like you mean that, Papi."

"I will pick you up at the station."

Gabe took a deep breath. "Thank you. I'll text you when I'm close."

"Texting." The distaste in his father's voice actually made Gabe smile. It was a simple dislike, so easy and cliche. A technological generation gap. So much easier to navigate than all these issues of disappointment and failure and losing his way.

"Yeah. Texting. You've gotta learn."

"I have learned to open them and read them. What more is needed?"

"Writing and sending replies."

"This is not necessary. If I want to reply I will call you."

It was a fight for another day. Gabe didn't want to lose the comforting smallness of it in trying to win his point.

"I love you," he said instead, then silently kicked himself as there was another startled pause.

"I love you too, mijo," Diego said after a moment. "I will see you soon."

"If I have any train luck," Gabe said, and hung up quickly. He had managed to fuck up _I love you._. He was quite a prize.

He started walking to the subway and texted Pete. _going to Jersey to see my dad. Back tonight._

He didn't check for a reply until he was on the platform. _drug test when you get back._.

Anger flared up again, sour and hot and begging to come bursting out of his chest like a dragon. _bite me_.

_no its a spit swab._.

Asshole. Gabe shoved his phone in his pocket and brooded on the bullshit all the way to Grand Central. He stayed mad through buying his Jersey transit pass and then through buying a magazine and a Diet Coke for the ride. He had every intention of staying mad the rest of the day.

But staying mad took energy. Staring out the window didn't. He didn't open his drink or his magazine the whole ride, just watched the world go by and kept catching himself breathing, like it was a surprise. He still had a body, it breathed, its heart beat. An endless surprise, the idea of having the right not to be a corpse.

He remembered to text, and his dad was waiting in Jersey City, politely bored behind the wheel of his beat-up little Civic until he saw Gabe. Then his face lit up on a smile, and he waved, a very parental wave. It was too enthusiastic, too excited, too much. Too much for anything, but especially for Gabe, the worst kind of prodigal son, the sheep who was beyond black and at the point of maybe being a zombie, or a plague carrier, or a wolf in disguise.

Still. He sure as fuck wasn't going to take a small pleasure away from his dad, not after everything else he'd swept away in breezy indifference. He returned the wave and jogged the rest of the way to the car, sliding into the passenger seat and hiding his wince as he contorted his knees into the small space.

"Hola, Papi."

"Hola, mijo. It's good to see you."

"It's good to see you too." Gabe took a deep breath and let himself mean it. Lunch with his father. This could be good, truly, without reservation. "I'm starving, how about you?"

"Absolutely." Diego put the car in drive and eased into traffic. "The diner, I assume?"

"Please." Gabe closed his eyes and tipped his head back, willing himself to serenity. He could pretend to be sixteen again. Except that was the opposite of serenity. That was hormones and rage bursts and crawling the walls because he couldn't control his limbs.

Maybe nineteen. Flushed with hope and buoyed by the self-righteousness of straight-edge veganism.

"How's work?" he asked, eyes still closed, heart fluttering in his chest like how it felt to hold a mouse in your hand. Panic that could be calmed with a little vodka or a snap of the neck. "Good patients?"

"They are all ears," Diego said, with the careful dry delivery that said he'd been saving that joke for weeks, and to Gabe's surprise, he laughed.

It didn't even hurt.

**

Lunch stretched out to a few hours, encompassing a trip to Walmart for essentials and junk in equal measure. His dad bought him candy like he was a kid again. He briefly entertained the thought that New Jersey existed in some kind of cosmic bubble and was his very own escape pod of joy, where things weren't quite such a fucked-up misery.

Not so, since on the way from Walmart to the station they drove past two venues he'd played with Midtown, the Starbucks where he wrote the riff for "Snakes on a Plane," and no fewer than three places called Pete's. Sick fucking jokes from the universe. He got back on the train in a foul mood.

Pete was in the living room when he came in, reading a book and looking sad but comfortable in DePaul sweats. And glasses. It threw Gabe to see him in glasses.

Pete looked up, smiled faintly, and held up a plastic case. "Hi. Gotta swab you."

"Seriously?"

"Some things I don't joke about. Swabbing and dinner are the top two."

Gabe dropped his bags to the floor and walked over to take his swabbing. "So what's for dinner?"

"Pancakes. Or we can order something." He reached up, brushed the swab over Gabe's tongue, and shook it out.

"What transformation are we waiting for?"

"Blue is bad, white is good." Pete fell quiet for a moment, looking over the frames of his glasses at the paper. "And you're good."

"I was with my dad."

"How is he?" Pete shifted on the couch, wincing as he unfolded one leg from beneath himself. The knee popped loudly as he extended it, and Gabe winced as well.

"He's well. He's... himself."

"Seems like a really great guy."

"He is. Better than I deserve."

Pete's eyebrow rose, but he didn't take the bait. "Pancakes or ordering?"

"Can there be chocolate chips in the pancakes?"

"Obviously. What's the point otherwise?" Pete put a bookmark in and stood up. "Let's do this."

"You don't want to talk about yesterday?"

Pete shrugged. "Do you?"

"No."

"Do we need to?"

"I guess not. I won't do it again, I mean."

"Then I'd rather think about pancakes." He headed for the kitchen and Gabe fell in behind him, wondering why the fuck he liked how this guy thought.

**

Gabe thought of it as the night he fucked up. Not the night he almost died; not the night he lost his band. Just the night he fucked up. Easier that way.

He could remember it in pieces: his own apartment, a couple of bars, a club bathroom, a taxi. He knows he passed out in the taxi, because they told him so at the hospital. The fucking hospital, where he woke up, with his stomach completely jacked from being pumped, his dad sitting in a chair next to his bed and looking ten years older, and the news that Warner had already decided they'd just let that contract option slide, thanks. He'd only made TMZ, not anything more mainstream, but they _still_ were done with his ass. Literally overnight.

He fucked up. He knows that. He drank too much and he took too many pills and he did coke in a club bathroom like some kind of fucking cliche, and all of it together turned his blood into thick sticky syrup and tried to stop his heart. At least, that's how he pictured it. Probably that's not the actual physiological truth. He never asked or tried to figure it out for sure. He didn't plan to do it again, after all. Though it was kind of tempting to see if next time he could get it right.

He rubbed his eyes and switched on the bedside lamp, giving in to the fact that he was obviously not going to get any sleep. If he was just going to lie there thinking about the night he fucked up, he might as well do it with the light on. And some of the leftover pancakes.

The light was already on in the kitchen, Pete sitting at the table flipping slowly through the notebook Gabe had seen on his bedside table. "Hey," Gabe said softly.

Pete looked up, eyes wide and weary behind his glasses. "Hey."

"It's two AM."

"I know."

"What're you doing up?"

Pete's mouth curved in a half-smile. "I guess the same thing you are. Couldn't sleep."

"Yeah." Gabe shook his head and went to the refrigerator. "You want anything?"

"I made tea." Gabe heard him lift a mug and then place it on the table again. "It's not helping, though."

"Tea's got caffeine in it, doesn't it?"

"Herbal tea." Pete sighed. "Insomnia's a bitch."

"Tell me about it." There was nothing in the refrigerator that Gabe wanted. He took a Diet Coke because it was there, thought about his own point about the caffeine, and put it back. "Are you thinking about all of your mistakes?"

"Some of them."

"I'm thinking about what happened." It sounded stupid out loud. Like he wanted attention. 

Pete nodded at the chair across from him. "Did you get the whole white light, dead relatives beckoning experience?"

"No." Gabe sat and drew his feet up on the seat of the chair, bracing his knees against the table's edge. "I don't remember anything after getting in a cab. Apparently I puked up half my internal organs and passed out, so the driver dropped me at an ER and charged my credit card for the mess."

"At least he didn't leave you on the sidewalk."

"Nothing stopping him from doing that, it's true."

Pete shrugged. "His own conscience. The universal connections between humans."

Gabe stared at him. "Seriously?"

Pete frowned down into his tea. "I have to believe in stuff like that, or the world doesn't make any sense, you know?"

"Disagree. It makes plenty of sense as nasty, selfish, brutal, and fucked."

"Okay. It does." Pete pushed his mug away and wrapped his arms around himself. "But that makes me feel awful."

Gabe bit his lip and studied him for a minute. "Is this why you're here? For two AM talks?"

"Among other things."

"What kind of other things?"

"It depends on what you need."

"What does that mean?"

"Every client needs something different," Pete said. He was looking in Gabe's direction, but just past him, over his shoulder. Gabe itched to turn and follow his gaze, but he knew there was nothing there but the wall. "The hard part of my job is figuring that out and trying to either give it to them or help them find it."

"What if what they need is to destroy themselves?"

Pete blinked slowly. "I've never had someone where that's the case."

"Maybe you've just been lucky."

Pete's eyes flicked to Gabe's face for a moment. They were so fucking sad. For a minute they took Gabe's breath away.

"Maybe," Pete said. "I don't think so, though."

At a total loss for what to say, Gabe finally punted. "We should both go back to bed." 

"We should. Definitely." Pete stood up and went to the sink, pouring out the tea and then rinsing his mug in a slow, ritualistic way that Gabe found weirdly soothing for a chaser to an existential conversation at two AM. Probably Pete did, too. Probably that was why he was doing it. "I've got some ideas for tomorrow, if you're not busy."

"I have absolutely nothing in the entire world to do. Seriously. My life is a blank slate in your hands."

"Cool." Pete turned the water off and set the mug in the strainer to drain. "Then I'll see you in the morning."

**

Pete took him to the fucking MOMA.

Gabe bought breakfast, even though technically it was Pete's turn; churros from a vendor totally counted as breakfast. "The pancakes also counted," Pete said with a little grin, powdered sugar flecking his lips and, somehow, the tip of his nose. "We're still even."

"The pancakes were _dinner_ , and you said we were going to alternate breakfasts."

"Breakfast for dinner. It counts."

"It so doesn't!"

"It so does." Pete wiped his mouth and tossed his napkin into the trash with a perfect parody of a three-point shot. He missed the sugar on his nose, and Gabe didn't tell him. "But if it'll make you feel better, I'll get you a snack later."

"Now I feel like a toddler."

"World's tallest toddler."

"Oh, do you have short-man issues?"

Pete curled his lip at him. "Careful."

"Just asking." Gabe shoved his hands in his pockets and followed Pete down the sidewalk. "Seriously, though, I feel like a little kid being taken on an outing. Why are we going to a museum?"

"Art therapy."

"I don't want _any_ therapy. I am done with therapy."

"Art meditation, then. Art contemplation. Art time."

"But _why_?"

Pete laughed. "You actually sound like a toddler, too. Wow. I'm going to have to think about this."

"Think about what? Treating me like one for real? Making me wear one of those?" He pointed at a little girl wearing a harness with a leash clipped at the center of her back, leading to the hand of her harried-looking father. "Naptime and wiping my ass for me?"

"Maybe not quite that far."

"Spankings?"

Pete shook his head and glanced at Gabe out of the corner of his eye. "I don't think so."

Gabe felt pumped up, electric, like this stupid banter while weaving their way through the lobby to pay their admission fee was the most fun he'd had in a long time. Stupid. "For real? You don't want to spank me? I've got an awesome ass, dude, admit it."

"Stop."

Pete's voice was suddenly firm, his smile wiped away like it had never been. Gabe missed a step and tried to make it look like he was dodging another kid. "Sorry."

"It's fine. Just, you know." Pete shrugged. His voice was careful, neutral, like this was a much-practiced resposnse. "In public. Kids around. Middle of the day. I feel like we should keep it clean."

"Sure." Gabe shoved the stung feeling down, back, out of his head. Into the places in his guts he tried hard not to look very often. "Tell me about your art contemplation plan. So I know what we're even doing here."

Pete looked away, digging around in his pocket for something. He looked off-balance, a little lost, somehow smaller, unless Gabe was just projecting the way he was feeling himself. 

"Look at the art," Pete said finally, pulling out a member's pass. "Think about the art. Get out of your head a little. Connect with the stream of human creative consciousness."

"So... bullshit, kind of." He put his hands up in surrender at Pete's weary look. "Hey, it's the kind of bullshit I buy into myself, sometimes. As long as we're both aware it is in fact bullshit."

"Didn't I just say a thing about keeping it clean?"

"Bull shiz. Bull pucky. Bull... sperm."

Pete closed his eyes tightly. "Oh my god."

"Sperm's not clean either, I guess." Gabe shoved his hands in his pockets and tried to look innocent, tried to feel like this was actually getting back on track to lighthearted and stupid and not... weird.

Pete looked like he was fighting a smile, so maybe it was even working. "Sometimes people just go to museums to look at art because that's why museums exist. You can think of it that way if it works better for you."

"I'll try it your way. The stream of human creative consciousness."

"Thanks."

"From some artist's brain, through time and space, directly here to connect to me."

"That's the idea."

"My brain and my heart and my junk."

"Gabe."

"I'll keep track of what stuff gets me hard and what makes me go soft."

Pete's eyebrows rose and his smile went brittle as he pushed his membership card across the counter to the clerk. "You can keep that to yourself, actually, thanks."

**

Gabe remembered very early in their visit that he actually kind of hated modern art.

"Next time we have art time, we're going to the Met," he said firmly. "Art that's actually representative of what it's supposed to be."

"I had no idea you were an art snob." Pete grinned and jerked his head toward a Starbucks. "I seriously never would've gotten that from your music."

The mention hurt less than Gabe would have expected. He could make a rejoinder without flinching, even. "My music is totally representative. It's real art, not... figurative bullshit."

"Uh-huh. 'Empty Like The Ocean' doesn't have any metaphors at all."

"Metaphors, yes. Using color blocks to represent things, no."

"Don't hate on the great art of our time, man." Pete pulled a Starbucks card out of his pocket. Gabe was starting to wonder if his pockets were like Mary Poppins' bag or something. "I can't believe you prefer to retreat back into dead eras."

"Oh. Oh, we are going to have such a huge fight about this as soon as I have enough caffeine in me to care."

Pete laughed and stepped up to place his order, and it suddenly hit Gabe like a truck that he felt at ease with this guy, that he was having a good time, and he wasn't supposed to be. He hated this guy. He was angry at him for being here. His whole presence was a reminder that Gabe was a fucking mess.

Reminding himself wasn't doing a whole lot of good to stir his indignation back up, though. He poked at it and poked at it through placing his own order and waiting for both of their drinks, but it just wouldn't burn. He still hated _himself_ , no problem. He was a disaster and a fucking failure. Pete, though. Pete was okay. And had just bought him coffee.

"Tell me about you," Gabe said when they stepped outside again, clutching their drinks to their chests. 

"You mean, like, my life story?" Pete made a face. "It's boring."

"Tell me anyway. Maybe I like boring. Maybe I'm into it."

"Am I supposed to make a joke here about your taste in art?"

Gabe flipped him off. "We seriously will go to the Met and I seriously will make you understand."

"Through physical force if necessary." Pete took a drink. "I'm from Chicago."

"That's one of the ones in the middle, right?"

"Fuck you."

"I'm kidding, I'm kidding. I've been to Chicago lots. Played a lot of shows there."

Pete's eyebrows rose politely. "I know. I went to a bunch of them."

Right. "It's a great city."

"It is. I miss it." Pete looked down the street, his lips puckering a little like he was tasting what he might say next and not sure he liked the flavor. "I went to college for a while. I didn't know what to do with myself. I got in a bad place, mentally. Took some time off to figure out what to do."

"What were you studying?"

"Poli sci. Not because I cared, because I could fake it." Pete bit at the thumbnail of his free hand, staring sightlessly at the don't-walk sign. "Politics is all about faking it."

"No argument there." The light changed and Gabe stepped into the street, his hand bumping against Pete's. Pete threw him a startled look, and Gabe curled his fingers into the hem of his shirt to keep them still.

"Um." Pete's voice faltered. "Where was I?"

"Took some time off college."

"Oh, right. Um, long story short, I fucked up, I got a new therapist, she was good, we talked about life and shit, I decided to finish my degree and then get a master's in social work, then I had to figure out what to do with it, blah blah, got into sobriety counseling, quick step from there into companionhood. The end."

Gabe tossed his half-full coffee cup into a trash can as they passed. "What kind of fucking up did you do?"

"Does it matter?"

Gabe kept his eyes straight ahead, even though he could feel Pete's on his face, measuring. "No. Not my business. Sorry."

"It's fine." Pete's voice was distant, though, more remote than it had been all day. "No big deal."

Gabe bit down on his tongue and lengthened his stride a little. Suddenly the day felt like it would be a hell of a lot better at home.

**

He tried to sleep when they got back to the apartment, a nap to make up the difference of the sleep he'd lost the night before, but it wouldn't take. He just lay there, on his stomach in bed, head turned to the side and one leg drawn up on the mattress so his knee was to his chest. He only felt right when he was twisted up, these days.

His mind was like a stubborn bad movie in heavy cable rotation, playing out scenes that didn't get any better through repetition. His fucking life. His teenage years, thick with cliches and pain that wasn't any less just because it _was_ a cliche, no matter how many times he told himself to get the fuck over it. Bleached hair and loud music and being called a freak. Fighting with his parents and holding on to his guitar like it understood him. Starting a band.

His band. His fucking goddamn band.

He couldn't think about Midtown anymore because thinking about it reminded him how it committed ritual suicide and crawled off into a ditch to die alone, taking his heart with it clenched in its fist. The way he _still_ felt when he thinks about it made him want to puke and punch himself in the face. He should be over it by now.

And after Midtown, after the first white heat of grieving, he decided he would do the other thing. Make it a joke. Wrap his words in pop trash and see if people liked it any better that way. He made the demos and he _waited_ , watched them sit on the shelf and wondered what the fuck he was going to do, how he was going to break out.

And then he thought like a suit, he used his contacts. He made a call to the Way brothers, guys he hadn't talked to in years. He hadn't even answered Mikey's text of condolences when Midtown broke up.

But they were hot shit now, their band was moving records, and they got him a sit-down with Warner, and that got him an offer for his demos, and then... and then...

He thrashed violently onto his back and threw a punch over his head at the headboard. _Fuck_.

He didn't want to think about this any more. Ever again. It was over.

All of it was over. Exit, stage left, the dream.

**

They fell into a kind of routine: school-trip-style outings every few days, breakfasts and dinners on an uneven rotation, sporadic insomnia talks. Gabe's moods spun as badly as ever, but he had to admit that apparently his dad had been right: having Pete in the house meant he was just spinning, not crashing or burning. Pete was just enough to make him keep it together.

One morning after an insomnia night, Pete knocked on his door. "Go away," Gabe called, pulling his pillow over his face. "It's early."

"It's nine-thirty."

"That's still early."

"Your dad is here." 

Gabe pulled the pillow off his face and frowned. "What? Why?"

"He said you guys had an appointment."

"What does _that_ mean?"

He could hear Pete sigh through the door. "Dude, I don't know. Come out and talk to him."

Gabe wrapped his blanket around himself and marched out to the living room. "Papi, what the hell?" Diego raised an eyebrow at him and Gabe backtracked. "I mean what's wrong? Are you okay?"

"I'm fine. We agreed we would meet and talk today."

Gabe pulled his blanket tighter around himself and scowled. "I have no idea what you're talking about."

"It has been one month since Pete came to stay with you."

"Oh!" Gabe sat down on the couch and pulled the blanket up higher to make a hood over his head. "Oh."

"You said we would discuss the situation after one month. And so here I am."

"Are you sure it's been a whole month? It doesn't feel like a month."

"It has," Pete said from the hallway. He was standing hipshot, his hands shoved awkwardly in his back pockets, looking back and forth between them with caution. "Do you want me to leave so you can have this discussion?"

"Is everybody counting the days except me?" Gabe asked. He knew this flare of temper was pointless, useless, and above all childish, but fuck it. He wasn't good at surprise. "I mean, does everybody else just have this countdown to when they can ditch me alone again with my--"

"Be quiet," Diego said sharply. "You insisted that you wanted to be alone when I hired Pete to stay with you. You were very angry. You cannot suddenly reverse yourself now."

"Apparently I can," Gabe muttered. "I am."

"So you want Pete to stay, now. I'm glad to hear this."

"Well, maybe not, if he's counting to when he can leave."

Pete rolled his eyes and took a step farther back into the hallway. "When I'm hired for a set term I need to keep track of how far along I am. It's not personal."

"Sure it isn't." Gabe hunched down smaller in his blanket. He could feel Diego's exasperation, but it was hard to care. Pete was counting down to when he could leave, and apparently Gabe's father took him seriously when he was just being an asshole, which had disastrous implications for their entire relationship. Gabe needed to have a moment of crisis, here.

"It is _not_ personal," Diego said. "He's doing his job. Please treat him with respect." When Gabe didn't answer, he received a firm tap on the shoulder. "And respect me as well."

"Yes, Papi," Gabe muttered. "Lo siento. Sorry, Pete."

"I'd like a little more sincerity," Pete said. "But I won't demand it."

"Good."

Diego rubbed his hand over his face. "I am glad I drove up here for this conference."

"Sarcasm doesn't become you, Papi."

"I will smack your backside like you are four years old, Gabriel."

Pete laughed and they both looked up, startled. "Sorry. Inappropriate humor. In my head. Look, I'm... I'm glad to be staying on. Especially since I didn't even know you were thinking of cutting me out."

"I was a little dramatic when you started," Gabe said. 

"I remember." Pete stood on his toes to see into the kitchen. "It's too early to go get lunch, but I could run out for coffee."

"I would dearly love a coffee. Thank you, Peter."

"We have a coffee maker," Gabe said, frowning. "I mean, I have one. We can just make coffee."

Pete rolled his eyes. "I'm trying to give you a moment with your dad. Doofus." He disappeared back down the hall for a moment and reappeared with his wallet in one hand and keys in the other. "Doughnuts, too? Or ooh, croissants?"

"Chocolate croissants," Diego said immediately. "I can give you some money."

"I'm good, don't worry about it. Have a good talk. I'll go slow. Stop to talk to all the dogs." He was talking while crossing the room, suddenly in a hurry, the last words barely getting back to them before the door closed with a bang.

Gabe took a deep breath and tipped his head back, staring at the ceiling. "Wow."

"That was very strange."

"I'm such an idiot."

"You are not an idiot. But you're deeply confused, and still hurting, and I worry about you, mijo."

"I never know what to say when people tell me they worry about me." Gabe kept his eyes on the ceiling, like it had any answers. "I'm sorry? Don't be? I worry about me, too? What will make you feel better, Papi?"

"If you said that you will be kind to yourself, and healthy, and no longer intent on causing yourself harm."

"I don't think I can say that and mean it. I mean, I can't _promise_ it. I can promise to try, but..."

"Trying would be good enough for me."

"It wouldn't, though. Not really. Trying isn't good enough at all." Gabe shook his head and let his gaze drop to his lap, his hands clutching white-knuckled at the blanket. "I'm scared."

"Of what?"

"That trying won't be good enough. That I'll break your heart."

"That you'll break my heart." Diego took a slow breath. "Not that you will die?"

"I've never been afraid of death, Papi. I'm afraid of failure."

"You have lived failure, by your own terms, twice now. What is there still to be afraid of?"

Gabe gasped softly, his hands releasing the blanket. One rose to his chest and the other to cover his mouth. "Oh."

"Gabriel?"

"It's okay," Gabe muttered. He forced his hand away from his face again, though the other one still pressed over his heart. "Just, um. That hurt. A lot."

"I'm sorry, I did not mean--"

"No, it hurt because it's true. Fuck." Gabe rubbed his eyes and looked away. "Fuck. What _am_ I still afraid of?"

"The world is a very big place," Diego said softly. "There are so many things for you to experience. So many paths you could take. I see nothing but potential when I look at you."

"And all I see is fear." Gabe took a shaky breath, then another. "Fuck."

He felt his father's arms wrap around him, and he didn't resist, just let Diego pull him to his chest and hold him close while the shudders ran through his body. He didn't cry; it was a dry panic, just wave after wave of shaking and fighting to breathe rolling through him, half-born sobs tearing from his throat. It felt like it lasted forever, but when he found himself in control again, exhausted and lightheaded but himself, Pete still wasn't back with the coffee.

His father was rubbing his back, murmuring softly in Spanish, and Gabe's face was mashed into Diego's shoulder. His self-awareness came back carried on the smell of Old Spice and Tide. "God," he muttered, sitting up slowly and forcing a weak smile. "Sorry about that."

"Do not apologize to me. I'm your father." Diego reached out and brushed Gabe's hair from his forehead. "I have seen you much worse."

"I can't imagine when I've been worse than that."

"When your mother left us. And at your bris."

Gabe burst out laughing; it was raw and painful leaving his chest, but it was real. "Wow. Those are two things I never would've really linked together of my own free will."

"Inappropriate, I suppose." Diego made a face. "But accurate."

"Very accurate." Gabe shook his head. "Well."

"You will allow Pete to stay for the full time?" Diego took Gabe's hand. "He helps with the fear, perhaps?"

"He does." Gabe couldn't look at his father, but he also couldn't let go of his hand. "He... I can't put it in words. He isn't doing anything in particular. We go to museums. We read. We walk around and look at dogs. But it helps with the fear, yeah. Somehow."

"Sometimes there is a great gift simply in having a friend."

"But we're not friends, are we?" Gabe shook his head again. "He's being paid to be here. Being paid to _act_ like a friend. But he's not."

"It sounds as if functionally, he is. And isn't that what counts?"

Gabe stared down at the floor for a moment. His heart was shouting _no_ , very clearly. It didn't count at all. But he couldn't argue with his father's logic, either. He was staying clean. He was getting out of bed. Pete helped with the fear.

It needed to be good enough. It would have to be. He was going to have to learn to live with good enough.

"Yes," he said finally. "Yes, Papi. You're right. That's what counts."

Diego pulled him into another hug, warm and safe, and Gabe made himself focus on the feeling of it, the grounding in his body. It was almost working when the door swung open and Pete came in.

"Chocolate croissants and coffee for all," he said, his eyes darting over them and then carefully turning to the coffee table. "The best way to start your day, right?"

"This is breakfast," Gabe said, trying to keep his voice even. "You're taking my day, here."

"You'll get me tomorrow." Pete tossed his keys down. "So do I still have a gig?"

"You are staying," Diego said. 

"Great." Pete handed them each their coffee and held his own up in the air. "Let's drink to that."

**

Gabe tried to keep his own uncertainty in mind over the next few weeks. He tried to create a distance, to remind himself that Pete was not, in fact, his friend. He was a functional friend. A wolf in friend's clothing. Just some guy.

He turned down a couple of Pete's suggested outings, to make the point both to himself and to Pete, though Pete didn't know what point was being made, so probably it was less than effective. Both times Pete looked confused, but just shrugged and said they'd go another time, and went off with a book or his notebook or his headphones and one of Gabe's albums. And didn't that just crawl down into Gabe's guts and make him feel even weirder about everything? The way Pete was all of these things, complex and contradictory. False friend, paid babysitter, opponent-ally in competitive breakfasts, fan.

A few times he got dressed to go out, even stood in front of the mirror and planned what he would say to Pete on his way to the door. _Meeting some guys in the city, don't wait up. You can swab me when I get back. I just need to have some fun._ But every time he ended up retreating to his bed, step by step, then stripping down to his skin and rolling up in the blankets. Maybe he'd been wrong about the fear. He apparently did still have something to be afraid of, he just couldn't put a name on it. 

Disappointing his family. Making a fool of himself.

_Disappointing Pete_ , he thought once or twice, but banished the idea from his head. That wasn't something he had room for right now, in his head or in his life at all. It would have to wait, ideally forever.

They made dinner together one night, about two weeks after Diego's visit. Gabe stood over the stove, looking down into a pot of water, waiting for it to boil. He shifted the sticks of spaghetti back and forth between his hands. 

"Don't break it in half," Pete said from where he was assembling a salad that looked like it had been through the war. "I like my noodles long enough to wrap around a fork."

"Okay."

"I'm going to eat all of the garlic bread myself, fair warning. You'll have to fight me to get a share."

"Understood."

"Are you okay?" The sounds of preparation stopped, and Gabe could feel Pete's eyes on the back of his neck. He dropped the pasta into the water and shrugged in response, letting Pete read his negation in his shoulders. "Gabe, do you need to talk about it?"

"I don't know."

"I'm totally here to listen. We're on week six, you know? You know I can listen."

"I do know that. I just don't know how to talk about it." 

"You're having a rough night. You're craving?"

Gabe exhaled and shrugged, turning the heat on the burner up and down. "Not really."

"What, then?"

"I'm trying to figure out what I'm afraid of." It sounded so naked said out loud. He pictured it as a white, hairless, alien animal set loose in the kitchen. It looked kind of like a pig crossed with an alligator.

Pete came over to stand beside him, and they watched the water bubble for a moment. "In general, or in a specific situation?"

"That's what I'm not sure about."

"Shit." Pete rubbed the back of his neck. "That's a hard one. That's, like. One of the big questions."

"Tell me about it." Gabe exhaled slowly, through clenched teeth. "Yeah." 

"Well, what are you _not_ afraid of?"

Gabe frowned. "Lots of things?"

"I don't mean, you know, spiders or whatever. What, existentially, are you not afraid of at this stage?"

Gabe leaned against the counter. "I guess I'm not afraid of losing my band anymore. That one's checked off the list."

"Okay. Good start."

"I'm not afraid of being dumped in the street to die." Gabe swallowed hard. "Obviously my dad is going to take care of me, whether I deserve it or not."

"We'll follow up on the concept of deserving it another time," Pete said. "Keep going."

"I'm not afraid of feeling shitty, I guess? I mean. I feel shitty all the time now, and I can't kill it with booze or pills, and it hasn't killed me like I thought it would." Gabe reached for the spoon. "So. I guess I'm not afraid of that."

Pete was quiet for a moment. "Those are pretty big things."

"Yeah?" Gabe shook his head, firmly telling his eyes not to water or sting. Not having any of that shit. "I don't know."

"They're huge things." Pete pulled away and went back to the garlic bread. "You should be really proud."

Gabe stared down into the water and let that thought circle in his mind. Really proud. It didn't seem like anything to be proud of, but maybe if he let it sit longer. Maybe. Pete wasn't his friend, but he also hadn't seen any reason so far to think that Pete would lie to him.

"So I saw on the news earlier that it's going to be warm later," Pete said, in the exaggeratedly-light tone that Gabe knew by now meant he was shifting them out of a serious talk and back into the real world. "Maybe we could go for a run. Or a walk. Just something to get fresh air, you know? Hit one of the parks."

"Yeah." Gabe nodded, even though he was facing away. "Yeah, let's do that. That would be good."

**

"Have you thought about being creative?"

Gabe looked up from the TV and frowned at Pete. "Pardon?"

Pete was lying on his stomach on the couch, feet dangling over the arm. "Have you thought about reintroducing creativity to your life?"

"You sound like you're proselytizing. Like you're asking if I've accepted Christ as my personal savior."

"I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that you're not interested in that."

"I'm Jewish."

"I know. I was kidding. I'm not talking about religion, I'm talking about art."

Gabe shifted in his chair and shrugged. "I don't think I'm into it anymore."

"Into art? At all?"

"I never did art at all. I can't even draw a box."

Pete shook his head. "You know what I mean. Don't be like that."

"I _can't_ draw a box."

"Music is art. You're a musician. A really talented one."

"I was never talented. And what I did have, I threw away. It's gone now. Let it be."

Pete shook his head and sat up. "That's very dramatic."

"Fuck you."

"I thought we finally got past the hostilities, man."

"We did when you weren't telling me how to feel. Fucker."

"I'm just suggesting that reconnecting with your craft might--"

"Craft? Is it a craft or an art? Pick one."

"Gabe. I am trying to--"

"You don't know what you're talking about. You don't know what this is like."

Pete's jaw tightened and he raised his eyebrows. "I see."

"Don't do that. Don't do therapist bullshit."

"I'm just curious why I can't tell you how to feel but you can tell me what I do and don't understand. It's an interesting double standard."

"Is this where you tell me your heartbreaking secret story? Please. Do. I want to hear it, so much."

Pete shook his head and got off the couch. "You want to be an asshole, that's fine, but I'm not going to give you an audience for it."

"Don't talk to me like I'm a toddler."

"Well--"

"And don't say you wouldn't if I didn't act like one!"

"Any other instructions?"

"Go to hell?"

Pete shook his head and walked out. A minute later Gabe heard the guest room door close with a solid thump.

Not a slam. He couldn't get that kind of reaction out of Pete. Stupid.

Gabe glared at the TV, then turned it off and went to the kitchen. He needed caffeine and sugar, the only addictive substances he was allowed unless he wanted to take up smoking again. Which would make his dad angry and sad. Apparently that was his limit these days, the point at which he could do no more. His dad.

Part of his brain was whispering that he pretty clearly felt bad for upsetting Pete, too, but he wasn't speaking to that part. It was stupid and making shit up and making him uncomfortable and could fuck off. Among other things.

He took a Coke out of the fridge, took one sip, and regretted it. "Fuck," he announced to the sink.

He wanted a real drink, sharp alcohol curling on his tongue. He wanted a handful of pills of unknown origin, and coke not from a bottle, and to walk out of his own brain and not come back to it until his body was worn down and sated and there was no more restless energy left to burn. He wanted to get high and be free for an hour. He wanted to bring the endless grinding machinery of his brain to a halt.

He could. It would be easy. Pete wouldn't even hear him leave.

He knew how to be a fuckup. He didn't know how to do recovery. He hated things he didn't know how to do.

It was a really easy three-part sequence of logic. There wasn't even a question.

But for some fucking reason he went down the hall and knocked on Pete's door.

"I'm hungry," he said. "I'm thinking tacos."

"That sounds good," Pete said from inside. "The place down the street or the other one?"

"You like the other one better. The guacamole."

"I'm a sucker for good guac."

"So I'll order from there. And extra guac."

"That's fine."

Gabe gritted his teeth. "And over dinner we can talk more about it."

"About what?"

"Fucking... creativity."

"Only if you want to."

"I don't. But I want to hear what you have to say."

The door opened. "Thanks," Pete said, and Gabe braced himself for follow-up sarcasm, but it didn't come. "I really appreciate that."

"You're welcome." Gabe frowned. "This isn't really a you're welcome situation."

"It's not. Go order the food, okay? I need to make a call."

"To who?"

Pete's eyebrows went up. "Not really any of your business?"

"Sorry. Sorry. I thought..."

"It's not about you."

"Right. Of course not." Gabe retreated down the hall, rubbing the back of his neck as he went. Fuck. He was so bad at this. All of it. Dealing with another human being while sober.

Pete stayed in his room until the food arrived, and Gabe stayed in the kitchen, rinsing what was apparently a week's worth of coffee mugs and lining them up in the drying rack. He stared at them, at the little rivulets of water running down to drain in the sink.

"I think we drink too much coffee," he said when Pete came out to join him, while he unpacked the bag of tacos on the counter. 

"No such thing."

"Look at all the mugs. That's, like. A dozen mugs."

Pete glanced at them without interest. "If you have that many, why not use them?"

"I used to collect them. On tour? Like, I'd buy mugs at truck stops and shit."

"I noticed that." Pete took his plate and went to the table, boosting himself into his seat so his feet were tucked up under himself. "Did you want one for every state, or were you collecting funny ones, or what?"

"A little of both." Gabe stared at his food for a minute, then shook himself and followed Pete to the table. "I don't know. They were a pain in the ass to haul around and the guys made fun of me. I only did it the first few years of Midtown, but I never got rid of them."

"There's nothing wrong with that."

"No?" Gabe poked his fork into the taco. "I'm not sure nostalgia is good for anybody. I think it might be something that needs to be killed."

"I'm agnostic on the subject. I think it depends on the person." Pete took a bite and chewed slowly. "I collected shot glasses. Smaller. Easier to transport."

"You collected them when?"

Pete smiled faintly. "When I toured with my band."

Gabe put his fork down with a definite click. "You were in a band?"

"Yeah."

"A band that _toured_?"

"Yeah." Pete shrugged. "Several, actually. They didn't go anywhere. You know how it is."

"I can't believe you didn't fucking tell me." 

"It doesn't matter, does it? It doesn't affect our relationship."

Gabe looked around wildly, like something that would make this make sense was posted somewhere in the room. A wall-sized poster declaring the connection between all things and a decoding of Pete's sentences. "Of course it does. If I knew you _got it_..."

"You wouldn't have _believed_ that I got it. You would've been the one telling me it doesn't matter, because none of the took off." Pete shrugged and licked guacamole off his fork. "It's okay. Really."

"What kind of bands? I mean. What style?"

"Hardcore." Pete wrinkled his nose a little. "You might've heard of some of them, but they weren't great. I don't know. They meant a lot to me at the time, but sometimes I feel like I imagined the whole thing. Like it was somebody else living that life, and I killed that guy and buried him in my basement."

Gabe shook his head. "That's... grim."

"You know the feeling, though, right? You know."

"I do. Yeah."

"Anyway." Pete's shoulders hunched, then with a visible effort went back to square. "I couldn't go to a show now without being laughed out the door, I guess."

"You totally could. Put on the outfit, put some gunk in your hair. You totally could."

Pete laughed. "I'm too old for it. But thanks. That's very flattering."

"Hardcore." Gabe sat back in his seat. "Shit."

"Hardcore shit. That's accurate, yeah."

"What did you play?"

"Bass, sometimes. Or I sang. I wrote lyrics. They were awful." Pete shrugged again. "You know how it goes."

"Yeah." Gabe could just picture a younger, angrier Pete, howling into a microphone. It made him feel weird. A little dizzy. A little hungry. He took another bite to buy himself a moment.

"I lost my band and I kind of fell apart," Pete said after a moment. "Every time before that I just started another one and kept going, but that time something broke. I don't know why. I don't know what was special that time. I've tried to figure it out, a lot, but nothing quite clicks into place."

Gabe wiped the back of his hand over his mouth. "So you became an addict assistant?"

"No." Pete made a face and pushed his plate away. "I took a bottle of pills and almost died."

Gabe stared at him. Too intensely, too long; he could see the discomfort growing in Pete, could see him fidgeting in his chair, but he couldn't seem to stop and drag words out of his brain.

"So anyway," Pete said after a moment. "Yeah. I didn't, obviously. I didn't die. I'm here."

"Right."

"Not a ghost." Pete held up his hand and waved it around. "Solid. I can pinch you if you want."

"That's okay. I believe you."

"I went to a lot of therapy. I decided I wanted to help people."

"I used to believe that music could help people."

"It can." Pete said it so fiercely that Gabe sat up straighter. "It does. It saved me a hundred times before I took those pills and it's saved me at least a dozen since after. It changes lives. One song helps more people than anyone one therapist ever could. But it, like, it's a diffused help. It has to soak in through your skin and get into your bloodstream. Into your heartstream. A person helping you directly, that's a concentrated shot. Focused right on you." Pete slumped in his seat a little, like saying that burned something out. "Different medicines, you know?"

"I guess." Gabe felt like his voice was barely audible. Maybe it sounded like he was talking through water. "I guess so."

"You have a gift. You make words that matter." Pete bit his lip and stood up, taking his half-full plate and moving toward the kitchen. "Don't stop. Create. Even if it's something else."

"Do you still create?" Gabe put his hand up before Pete could answer. "I know it's not any of my business. But I'm asking anyway."

Pete stood still for a minute, shifting his weight back and forth. "I write shitty poetry," he said finally. "Short stories that don't go anywhere."

"About the people you meet?"

"Serial numbers fully filed, I swear. I've got ethics." Pete shook his head. "Honestly, though, mostly they're just about the shadows in my head."

"I've got a lot of those."

"Shining a light on them sucks. But it's also good, I think. Sucky-good." Pete went into the kitchen and Gabe sat motionless, listening to him scrape his food into the trash and rinse his plate. "Anyway. It's something to think about."

Gabe thought about Pete's notebook, and all the shadows probably living there. "Yeah. I'll think about it." 

**

He couldn't write lyrics. Trying to made him choke, made his fingers curl up useless and broken, unable to hold a pen. His whole brain shied away from the idea so hard it hurt.

Try something else, then, he told himself, staring at the blank paper. It was just a shitty wide-ruled composition notebook from the drugstore, not the nice spiral-bound kind he used to buy for his real writing sessions when he cared. He couldn't take any pressure on this, not right now.

Unfortunately, apparently no pressure also meant no direction. Fuck.

_This is the story of a fire_ , he wrote, and stared at it for a moment. Pretentious. Vague. He crossed it out.

_This is a story about a guy who thinks he's dying but really he's just fucking stupid._ That was even worse. He crossed it out harder, then tore the page out, crumpled it, and threw it into the corner of the room.

Not lyrics. Not fiction. He never saw the point of poetry unless it _was_ lyrics.

"Biography it is, then," he muttered, clenching his fist around the pen. "When all else fails, tell them who you fucking are."

"You talking to me?"

Gabe yelped and dropped the pen, looking up. Pete was standing in the doorway, looking into Gabe's room with a puzzled expression.

"Were you talking to me?" he asked again, resting his head on the door frame. "I thought I heard a question."

"No," Gabe said. "Sorry."

Pete's eyes flicked to the notebook. "Oh! You're writing?"

"Trying to."

"Good luck." Pete stepped back and put his hands up. "I'll stay out of your hair."

Gabe nodded and picked his pen up, tapping the end against his knee. "Movie later?"

"Definitely. Something with explosions."

"A very high explosion to non-explosion ratio."

"On it." Pete gave him a thumbs-up. "I'll pick one out while you work."

"Oh, god, don't call it work." Gabe looked down at the page. "Right now it's more like... pointless straining on the toilet."

"Poetic." Pete walked away, his voice trailing back down the hall. "I have faith in you."

Gabe made a face and gripped his pen like a weapon. That made one of them, at least.

Tell them who you are.

_There's always that one kid everybody hates,_ he wrote. _The one that just can't fit in, because he was probably dropped on his head as a baby, and also he doesn't even belong there._

**

Gabe was not expecting to hear from anybody from Warner, ever again. He especially wasn't expecting to hear from the Ways. What exactly were they supposed to say to each other? "Sorry we vouched for you and it went shitty." "Don't mention it." 

Still, it was unquestionably Mikey Way on the other end of the phone, saying, "Dude. It has been too long."

"Ages," Gabe agreed, rolling the remote in his free hand. On the screen, Top Chef rolled on, muted. "How's it going?"

"Good. Really good. I mean, you know. New record."

"Right, right." Gabe hadn't been paying the slightest fucking bit of attention. "That's great, man."

"Yeah, we're pretty excited. It's a concept thing, you know? Oh, wait. Gerard doesn't want us to say that. It's high-concept. Not a concept thing."

"What's the difference?"

"Fuck if I know." 

A Gerard thing, then. Gabe could remember what that meant. "Well, that's great. Good for you guys."

"Thanks."

An awkward silence fell, and as tempted as Gabe was to see just how long it could stretch on before one of them dealt with it, he knew he couldn't beat Mikey Way at that game. "So... I got dropped. Cobra got dropped."

"I heard. I'm really sorry, dude."

"It was my own fault."

"I'm still really sorry." Mikey cleared his throat. "How, um, how's that going? How are you doing?"

"How's the drunken disaster thing going? That what you mean?"

Another pause, but this time Mikey picked it up. "Yeah, I guess so. Phrased less dickishly, but that's the gist."

"It's going okay. I mean, I'm doing better." Gabe let the remote drop to the cushion beside him. "I've got this guy staying with me."

"Like... a dealer?"

"What?" Gabe frowned at his phone. "No, dude, the opposite of that. A sober companion."

"Oh! Oh."

"How the fuck would having a dealer living with me help me stay clean?"

"I don't know! I was confused about that part, too."

"Dude." Gabe shook his head. "Sober companion. My dad hired him."

"That sort of sounds like bullshit. But he's helping?"

"I thought it was bullshit, too, but he's really great. He likes music and writing and shit. We talk about that a lot."

"That's cool, then. Like, he's a temporary rented friend."

Fuck. Right back to that. "Yeah. Kinda like that. So did you just call to catch up? I'm touched you could fit that in your schedule."

"Ha! Well. Not exactly? I mean, yes, but also I wanted to let you know we're doing a record release show and party in New York and you're welcome if you want to come."

"A release party?" Gabe blinked at the silent, frantic Top Chef contestants. "For real, you want me there?"

"Of course, Saporta. Come on."

"Well..." Gabe picked the remote up again and turned the TV off. "Can Pete come, too?"

"Pete?"

"My rented friend."

"Oh! Sure, of course. I'll put him on the list. Gabe Saporta and companion."

Gabe winced. "That makes me sound like an old guy who's gonna show up with an escort."

"That's where we all thought you were going to end up in life."

"Fuck you."

Mikey giggled. "I'll email you all the info. Can't wait to see you, man, it's gonna be great."

"Yeah. Say hi to your mom for me." Gabe hung up over Mikey's laughter and let his head thump back against the chair. A record-label party. Well. Nothing like returning to the scene of all your crimes.

**

"I'm not thrilled with this," Pete said as their cab pulled up to the curb. "For the record."

"I know you're not. You've been saying that since I told you about it."

"The closer we get, the less thrilled I am."

"That's why you're here with me, isn't it?" Gabe bumped his sunglasses higher on his nose and ran his credit card through the reader. "If I'm tempted by booze or drugs, you throw your body on them like a grenade. Take the hit for me."

"That's not _quite_ how it works." Pete straightened his tie and sighed. "This is not how I dreamed of meeting My Chemical Romance, you know."

"You dreamed of meeting My Chemical Romance at all?" Gabe tapped on the divider. "I need a receipt. I write this shit off on my taxes."

"You save receipts?" Pete looked surprised.

"Of course I do. You think I want a fucking audit?"

"You just didn't strike me as a guy who spends a lot of time thinking about his taxes."

"I think about my taxes all the time. At least a couple hours a week. It's important." Gabe shook his head and took the receipt, tucking it away inside his jacket. "Okay. Let's do this."

They slid out of the cab and walked up to the venue doors, where two bored-looking security guards checked them off on the My Chem list and waved them inside.

"And yes," Pete said once they were in and Gabe was tucking his sunglasses in his pocket, "of course I've dreamed of meeting them. Revenge was a fucking seminal album for me."

"For them, too. And I mean that in the sense of semen everywhere. Just... everywhere."

"You're disgusting." Pete stood on his toes and looked down the side-stage hallway. "This album should be really fun. The first single and the video are just--"

"You've seen the video? Where was I?"

Pete gave him a look. "Healing?"

Gabe thought for a moment, then shook his head. "Sulking?"

"Six of one, half-dozen of the other." Pete set off for the far wall and Gabe followed, looking suspiciously around the room. It was mostly industry people, mostly East Coast, mostly bored and boring. There were waiters passing through the crowd with trays of drinks, no finger food. One stopped in front of them, smiling politely and raising his eyebrows.

"Two Diet Cokes, please," Pete said before Gabe could get his thoughts together. "We'll need lots of those tonight."

"Diet Cokes, yes, sir," the waiter repeated, and moved off. Gabe stepped back and leaned against the wall, glaring at all of the people who were pretending he wasn't there. Pete hadn't liked this idea because he thought Gabe might drink; Gabe hadn't liked it because he knew it would be a reminder of exactly how much he had fucked the dog. And sure enough. Sad, violated dog everywhere.

"We don't have to stay if you don't want to," Pete said quietly. "We could go pretty much anywhere."

"I'm not backing down. I'm not running away."

"It would be a strategic retreat, not a failure."

"No."

"Gabe--"

"No!"

Pete's jaw clenched. "You are extremely annoying."

"Yeah, well, so's your mom."

"Wow. Okay." Pete shook his head and turned to face the stage. "Don't talk to me until after the show."

The show was... weird. Gabe didn't really get it. There were costumes and at some point Gerard had dyed his hair red and developed biceps, and Mikey was wearing a helmet for no apparent reason, and even though Gabe was pretty sure he'd only missed about four or six months of pop-music evolution this seemed to have dropped in from an entirely different planet. A planet of sexy people and excellent guitar lines, but still, he couldn't trace it back to anything concrete, and he was used to being able to _do_ that.

Fuck, if he didn't understand music anymore, then he didn't understand anything.

"Thank you!" Gerard said, leaning in over the mic. "Thank you so much for being here. It's great to be back."

That, Gabe _could_ understand. Like a fist to the chest. It did always feel great to be back, when you finished walking around in the wilderness, because that meant you _made_ it back. You weren't stuck out there with your bones being nibbled by wolves.

The band left the stage and Gabe blinked, wondering if he'd missed something. A guy in a bad suit who Gabe vaguely recognized--might have been the guy who signed the letter booting him out, actually, he should probably know that guy better than he did--stepped up to the mic and said, "The show is over. Please enjoy the party!"

"Are we going to enjoy the party?" Pete asked, turning to face Gabe again.

"You're talking to me now?"

Pete shrugged. "It's after the show."

Gabe drained the last of his Diet Coke and had to be reluctantly impressed when the waiter appeared at his side like a ghost to replace it. "I can stay."

"Are you sure?"

"I can stay."

"There's no shame in going home."

"Do _you_ not want to stay?"

Pete flushed a bit. "I really want to meet the band, but I'm kind of afraid I'll say something stupid."

Holy shit. "You are a _fanboy_ for them," Gabe said, pointing his drink at him. "I thought you worked with all kinds of pop and rock stars. I thought you were _jaded_ about this shit."

"I _am_. I'm also a fan." Pete sipped his drink and tried for a dignified face that ended up closer to constipated. "I contain multitudes."

"You contain lots of things."

"That's what I just said."

Before Gabe could come up with a reply to that, the whole crowd shifted a foot to the left as the My Chem guys came into the room. Gabe and Pete stood their ground, trees in the flood, watching the industry army begin the ritual kissing of ass.

"This used to be my life," Gabe said after a moment.

"Do you miss it?"

Gabe watched the bad suit from Warner pat Gerard on the back. "All the fucking time."

This wasn't like picking at a scab. This was like someone taking a kitchen knife and peeling up his scars.

"Let's get out of here," Pete said quietly, and Gabe realized Pete's hand was on his arm, already guiding him toward the exit. "Let's go get some tacos and cab it home."

Gabe nodded, tossing his glass at a waiter as he went. "Fuck this place anyway. Fuck this place and fuck these people." 

"Gabe, don't throw shit, just come on."

"I don't fucking care." Gabe jerked his arm free and walked out alone, half-aware of Pete's footsteps behind him, jogging to keep up. He got outside and doubled over, resting his hands on his knees and forcing himself to breathe deep. It wasn't exactly fresh air; it was New York City November air, damp and cool and thick with exhaust and dirt. Still, it was better than inside.

Pete's hand settled on his back, rubbing in careful circles. "Maybe forget the tacos and just go home?"

Gabe nodded stiffly, rubbing the back of his hand over his mouth. "Yeah. Get me the fuck out of here."

**

The cab ride home didn't make him feel any better. He walked up to his apartment feeling sour and sore, his head throbbing at the temples with his pulse and his stomach clenched up in knots. "Fuck," he muttered as he fought with the deadbolt. "Fuck this."

"Let me do it." Pete took the key from him and shouldered him aside. 

"I can do it myself."

"Yeah, I know, but--" The lock clicked and Pete opened the door, gesturing for Gabe to go inside. "Get changed and I'll make some coffee."

"I don't want coffee. I don't want... fuck, I don't want _anything_."

Pete closed the door and locked up with deliberate care, checking each lock before he turned to face Gabe again. "That's not true."

"Don't argue with me."

"You want to drink, you want to get high. You want your band back. Might as well admit it so it's out in the open."

"You don't fucking know me, okay? You don't fucking know what I think."

"I don't know you inside-out. I don't know you like my best friend. But by this point I _do_ know you, Gabe. I know how you work. I know that you hate admitting shit, even when it would make you feel better. Come _on_. Work with me, here."

"I don't want to work with you!" Gabe kicked the end table, sick satisfaction shooting through his veins when the leg snapped and the whole fucking thing collapsed to the floor, lamp and all.

Pete stared at the mess. "Well. That was childish."

"Oh, fuck you. Tell me another sad fucking story."

Pete looked up, eyes sharp. "Careful."

" _You_ be careful. Don't tell me what to do." Gabe walked over to him, backing him up against the door, getting in so close he could see the bloodshot lines at the corner of Pete's eyes. "You better be careful."

"Back off," Pete said quietly. "Don't threaten me, Gabe."

"I'm not."

"Then what--"

Gabe grabbed him by the shoulders, pinning them hard to the door and covering Pete's mouth with his. It wasn't much of a kiss; more heat and aggression than anything else, their teeth clicking together hard enough that it hurt, lips clumsy and catching.

The shocked little noise that Pete made, though. That went through Gabe like an electric shock.

He let go of Pete's shoulders and slid his hands up to cup Pete's jaw. "Fuck," he breathed, pulling back just enough to look into Pete's eyes. "Fuck. This."

"Gabe," Pete said unsteadily. "Gabe."

"This is what I want. You want me to admit something? This is what I want."

"I--"

Gabe kissed him again, catching the words before they could escape, and Pete groaned against his mouth, surrendering so suddenly it made Gabe dizzy. Pete was kissing him back, his hands sliding up Gabe's chest, grabbing at his shirt, holding on and holding Gabe there against him, he _wanted this too_ , oh, god.

Then Pete twisted his head away, taking a gasping breath. "Fuck."

"Already?" Gabe rubbed his thumbs in slow arcs over Pete's face. "I'm flattered."

"No." Pete shook his head and pushed at Gabe's chest, just a little shove but a firm one. "Gabe. No. Back off."

Gabe took a reluctant step back, then another. "What's wrong?"

"We can't do that. No."

"I don't get it." Gabe dragged his hand through his hair, frowning. "You wanted it. You kissed me back."

"I... yes." Pete blinked rapidly and licked his lips. "Yes, I... fuck. Yes. But we _can't_."

"Why not? Why the _fuck_ not? Give me one good reason."

Pete wiped his mouth and shrugged. "Professional ethics."

Gabe rolled his eyes. "I said a _good_ reason. If you don't want me, just fucking say so, but you'll have to be _really_ fucking convincing to make me believe it."

"Dammit, Gabe." Pete thumped his head back against the door. "I do want you. I... I do. But it's not a fucking joke."

"What do ethics have to do with this?"

Pete shook his head and stepped carefully away from the door, moving around Gabe to sit on the couch. "I am a professional. I take my job seriously. I cannot get involved with a patient. It's pretty much the very first rule."

"You live in my house. Nobody would _know_."

"I would know! That's the whole point!"

"So... so, what? We just pretend this didn't happen? We just keep playing house and keeping sober?"

"No." Pete's face twisted up like he was in pain. "No, we don't do that."

"Then what do we do?"

"I break my contract and go back to Chicago." Pete rubbed his hands on his thighs and stood up again, looking around the room like he was lost. "We don't see each other anymore."

Gabe's heart clenched. "No."

"It's... I _have_ to, Gabe."

"No. We can do the other thing. What I said. We _can_ do that. I know I said it all sarcastic, but--"

"We _kissed_!"

"We don't have to do it again! Not until the time is up!" Gabe reached toward him, then forced his hand down to his side. "I have, like, amazing levels of self-control."

Pete gave a short bark of a laugh. "You're an _addict_."

"And I've been controlling myself for a whole, what, two months now."

"Seven weeks," Pete corrected gently. "Seven weeks and two days."

"So there you go. That's a lot."

"It really isn't." Pete took a breath and stared up at the ceiling. "I don't know."

"We don't have to decide tonight." Gabe knew he was grasping at straws, he could feel them sliding clumsily from his fingers. "Sleep on it. See how it looks in the morning."

"Yeah." Pete rubbed his eyes. "Yeah. We can talk about it in the morning. I guess."

"It's my day for breakfast," Gabe said as lightly as he could. "I'll get your favorite."

"Shit. You know my favorite. Gabe, this isn't..."

"Sleeping on it." Gabe shook his head and started off down the hall. "Don't even think about trying to escape in the night, either. I've got ears like a cat."

"It's ears like a bat."

"I don't give a fuck." Gabe slammed his bedroom door and slumped against it, forehead to the wood, waiting for his heart to stop pounding enough to let him hear Pete's footsteps come down the hall.

Eventually, it did and they did, and Pete's door closed softly across the hallway. Gabe didn't move for a long time, straining to hear if Pete was walking around the room, if he was packing, if he was going to try to leave.

But it was quiet.

**

Pete was waiting at the table when Gabe got back in the morning with coffee and doughnuts. "Thanks," he said quietly when Gabe placed his in front of him. "Did you sleep okay?"

"I slept fine. Thank you. You?"

"Okay. Not great." Pete took a sip of coffee and stared down at the cup. "Why don't you sit down?"

"I think I'd rather eat standing up today."

"Gabe."

"What?"

Pete took a slow breath. "We need to talk about this."

"I'm attracted to you. You're attracted to me. We can't act on it until you're done with your contract."

"We shouldn't even act on it then."

"Why _not_?"

"It's not ethical! You don't really want _me_ , you're attracted to what I represent. Support and trust and comfort and--"

"That is _not_ what I get from you. None of those."

Pete lifted his eyes and glared at him. "Excuse me?"

"Well. Support, I guess. But--"

"I work really fucking hard at my job, please don't pretend I do _nothing_ for you."

"That's not what I mean! I just." Gabe waved his hands helplessly. "I like to think you... want to be here with me. That you're not just being paid to be my friend."

"I'm being paid to be your companion," Pete said quietly. "Everything above and beyond that is voluntary. And kind of unethical."

"Then those ethics are bullshit."

"They're not bullshit. They exist to protect us both."

"I don't need to be protected from you!"

"Stop." Pete's voice was barely audible. "Stop, please."

"Oh." Gabe took a step back. "Oh, I get it. You need to be protected from me."

"Gabe."

"All this wild addict charisma. I'll suck you in and chew you up."

"Stop it."

"Maybe you were right last night, then. Maybe you should leave."

Pete pushed his cup away and stared down at the table. Gabe felt like he was choking on his heartbeat, like his lungs were tearing themselves to ribbons with every breath.

"I think I have to," Pete said.

Gabe grabbed his keys from the counter. "I'm not going to watch it."

When he came back, Pete was gone.

**

Gabe spent the afternoon lying on the couch, trying not to let his thoughts move too far in any direction. He felt... not trapped, exactly, because it was his own will keeping him in this little space all walled in with choices he didn't want to make. That made it worse, actually. He kept inching back and forth between despair and anger for hours, until his phone rang insistently from the bedroom.

He grabbed it just before it would click to voicemail. "Hello?"

"Gabriel." 

Gabe slumped onto the bed at the sound of his dad's voice. "Hey, Papi."

"Are you all right? I've had a very confusing phone call from Peter."

Gabe closed his eyes. "Yes, I'm all right."

"All right in what sense?"

"I haven't slipped." Gabe swallowed hard, pounding his fist against the mattress. "What did he say?"

"He said that he could no longer be your companion, for reasons that he could not disclose. He refunded my money and gave me a list of other names I could call to find support for you."

"He stayed with me for seven weeks. He should get paid for that."

"I told him so, but he insisted."

"Of course he did." Pete and his fucking rules.

"Mijo, what is going on?"

"Nothing, Papi."

"That cannot be true."

"Nothing I can disclose, either." Gabe lay back on the mattress. "But I'm okay. I'm not... I haven't slipped. I'm okay."

"I will call these other people tomorrow and find someone for you."

"Please don't."

There was a long silence. "Gabriel..."

Gabe took a ragged breath. "Could I... do you think I could come stay with you? For a while?"

The surprise in his father's voice was a punch in the gut. "Of course! Are you sure you want this?"

"Yes. I just." Lying on his back meant the tears could pool in his eyes and burn. Gabe turned onto his side in defeat. "I guess I do need somebody around. Somebody who cares about me, not just... somebody random."

"I care about you very much."

"I know, Papi. That's what I'm saying. It would mean a lot if I could come stay with you."

"I can come pick you up this evening."

"I can take the train. It's fine. It doesn't matter."

"I will come get you. Por supuesto."

Fucking tears running all over his face, getting the bedding wet. "Thank you, Papi. Te amo."

**

He only took a backpack home with him, with a few changes of clothes, toiletries, a paperback, and his notebook. He was still trying to tell the story of who he was, in jagged phrases and loop-around paragraphs. He suspected that if he read back through it, very little of it would make any sense. He also suspected that the parts that did were going to be something strong and bright. Something he could build on, someday, when he was ready.

Diego had a job, and a life, things of his own to do. He wasn't a presence in the room the way Pete was, reminding Gabe without a word that he should keep his thoughts grounded in the here and now, that he shouldn't go off on flights of fancy that could end up chemical-dipped and burning. The fact that Diego would be home at six-thirty and alarmed if Gabe wasn't there was a sort of a ghost in the room, though. It served the same purpose.

Gabe watched a lot of TV and ignored the calls lingering on his phone, his old friends, old band. People he couldn’t handle right now. He couldn't handle their potential accusations, and he couldn't handle their potential forgiveness. All he could manage was the TV.

It was strange, to feel like he was waiting. There was nothing to be waiting _for_ ; no contract, no next album, nobody hoping he would call. There was just an endless stretch of time he needed to spend sober, also known as the rest of his life. At some point he needed to figure out what _else_ to use to fill that time. There had to be something.

For right now, though, there was making sure he was still there when his father got off work. Maybe even with a menu picked out to order something for dinner. That had to be enough.

**

Ricky did not agree.

"So you're living here," he said, skeptical eyebrow arched high enough that Gabe wanted to smack it right off his face. "Sponging off Papi and moping."

"I'm not _moping_. I'm in recovery."

"Couldn't you recover while doing something useful?"

"Like what, exactly?"

"I don't know." Ricky looked at the TV. "Not watching reruns of Criminal Minds?"

"It's background noise for my thoughts."

"Oh, wow. Excuse me, then."

Gabe shook his head and looked away. "You're still pissed at me, huh?"

"I'm not pissed at you."

"Yes, you are."

"I don't _get_ you."

"What is there to get?"

"Why you do this shit. You're the golden boy, the favorite son, and you're, like, determined to wreck it on purpose."

Gabe rolled his eyes. "Let's not start this whole weird jealous sibling shit again, huh?"

"I'm just saying what I think."

Gabe got to his feet. "I guess I'm not good under pressure."

"I think that's the most healthy way you've answered that ever. In our whole lives."

Gabe flipped him off. "Sit and spin, Ricardo."

"Fuck you too." Ricky shook his head. "Let's go for a walk."

"There's nowhere to walk around here."

"Let's go for a drive and then go for a walk, then. The shore."

Gabe wrinkled his nose. "The shore in November?"

"Nobody else'll be there, right?"

"You promise this isn't a murder thing?"

Ricky held up his hand. "Scout's honor."

"Like we were ever Scouts." Gabe shook his head, but went to get his jacket. "Like they would let hooligans like us in."

**

The shore was, of course, miserably fucking cold.

"The wind comes in off the ocean," Gabe said, hunching his shoulders and squinting out at the waves. "Little-known fact."

"Very known fact."

"Then why are we here?" The drive to the shore had been pleasant enough. They listened to the radio. They sang along to a few songs. They didn't _talk_.

Ricky stared out at the ocean. "Are you going to be okay?"

"Yeah. Yeah, of course I am."

"No, I'm not asking like everyone else asks. I don't want the canned answer. I want to know. Are you going to be _okay_?"

Gabe looks at him for a minute. "What happens if I answer no?"

"Then at least I've got time to figure out how I'm going to take care of Papi."

Gabe sighed and tilted his head back to look at the clouds. "I don't know. I think I'm going to be okay. I can't make any guarantees, you know? Life isn't like that."

"I motherfucking hate that about life."

"Tell me about it."

They stand in silence for a while, watching the waves crawl up the beach and fall back again. "What happened with you and the companion guy? Papi said it was going well." Ricky asked finally. "Why'd he quit?"

"I think I fell in love with him."

Ricky glanced at him. "No shit?"

"No shit."

"And he wasn't into it?"

"He was. He just had, um. Ethics."

"Oh." Ricky shook his head and dug his keys out of his pocket. "That sucks."

"It really does."

"You gonna go after him?"

"What, you mean like stalking?"

"No, just a..." Ricky waved his hand around. "A dramatic gesture. Like in the movies."

"He likes my music. I could write him a shitty song."

"Yes! A shitty song totally isn't stalking."

"That will hold up in court. My brother said it wasn't stalking, your honor. Is he a cop? No. He's an English teacher and a photographer and a tool."

Ricky flipped him off and started walking back toward the car. "Gabe, if you can write a song and get a guy to fall in love with you, I'll never lay the golden boy guilt trip on you again."

"No shit?"

"No shit." Ricky looked at him and grinned. "Which would _totally_ count as a reason to live, right?"

**

"The last act of RENT is going on in this room," Gabe wrote in his notebook. "I never liked that fucking play."

Writing a song on command for someone who might not ever want to speak to him again was fucking hard. He didn't have a voice for it, his guitar refused to stay in tune, and he couldn't shake the feeling that Pete didn't want a fucking song from him anyway. Pete didn't want _anything_ from him. He had probably thrown his Midtown CDs in the trash at the airport when he was booking it out of New York.

Gabe couldn't seem to give up, though.

He sat cross-legged on the bed, chewing on his pen, doing the math on how long since he left rehab instead of writing. Ten weeks, two days. Three weeks here with Papi, the rest with Pete. It felt strange, having a real sense of time moving forward and him doing this on his own. Halfway on his own. He almost felt good about it.

"Are you hungry?"

He looked up and blinked at his father. "No, I'm good. Thank you."

Diego nodded at the notebook. "What are you working on?"

"Oh, it's... it's nothing. A song. It's not going anywhere."

"I'm glad you're writing again."

"It's nothing."

"Your natural gifts are not nothing."

Gabe shook his head. "It doesn't really feel like a gift, very much."

"It's a gift you give to others." Diego smiled slightly and stepped away. "And very much appreciated."

Gabe stared down at the page. "I might be going at all of this backwards," he wrote. "That wouldn't be a first for me."

**

Gabe got Pete's PO box address from his dad's desk and bought a thank-you card at the grocery store the next day. It was kind of intimidating, shiny paper with elaborate flowers and sunbeams, and then fucking calligraphy inside. Hopefully all that helped to convey the seriousness of his message.

Serious, but at the same time, kind of wimpy. _Thank you. I feel like a different person since I met you. I think I'm going to be okay. I'm going to make music again, I'm going to make something honest and real. I'm going to live my life, and that's because of you. Thank you for everything, Pete._

_Love, Gabe_

He mailed it and tried to forget about it. The Internet could probably tell him how long it would take for a card to get to Chicago, but maybe it was better not to know. Most of the time it was better not to know, in life, he'd found. He could still believe things, if he didn't know the opposite for sure.

Still, when two weeks went by without hearing anything back, he had to admit that it was time to face some hard truths. He hated hard truths. Truths in general were not his favorite thing. 

He tried to forget about it instead. His dad asked him if he could repaint a few of the rooms downstairs, and it was good to have a project. Moving furniture, putting up primer, mixing paint; those were good. He left visible brush strokes on every wall, but he was _doing something_. Making it with his hands.

And at the three-week mark from when he sent the card, he got a reply.

It was a business envelope, the same pre-printed office supply that his dad had received receipts for his checks to Pete from, and the refund of those checks when Pete broke the contract. Gabe's name and the address were hand-written in blue pen, the handwriting crooked and hasty. Gabe stared at it for a long time, running his fingers over a smudge at the edge of the address, before he opened the envelope.

Inside, there wasn't a letter, but a three-by-five index card. The writing on it was on the blank side, not the lined, and was done in the same blue pen.

_Gabe-_

_I'm glad. I'm really glad you're doing well. I think about you a lot. Every day._

_I can't see you again. I'm sorry. I wish it was different._

_Pete_

Gabe put the card back in the envelope and the envelope at the bottom of his sock drawer. Hard fucking truths. His least favorite thing.

**

He painted the upstairs rooms, next, and the hallway. He offered to do the kitchen, but Diego refused.

"You've done enough on the house," he said, looking pointedly at Gabe's guitar, gathering dust again. "Now back to your art."

"I'm not quite there yet, Papi." Gabe held up his notebook, which was getting ragged around the edges from handling and wear. "I'm working on it, I am. I haven't given up."

"You are going to make music again," Diego said, peering at him closely.

"Yeah." Gabe nodded and forced a smile. It wasn't good enough to fool his father, but it felt... closer. "I'm going to make something real. I promise."

"I'm glad to hear this."

"And I'm going to go back to the city." He surprised himself with that as much as his father. "Not yet, I mean. But... but soon. When I feel ready. I'm going to go back."

"Back to your apartment," Diego said cautiously.

"Yeah. I'm paying rent on it. I should live there."

"You know you're welcome to stay here as long as you need."

"Yes. I know."

"As long as you want, as well, even if you don't need."

Gabe couldn't describe the difference when he felt his smile turn real, only that it had. "Yes, Papi. Yo se. Thank you."

"Very good." 

Diego left the room and Gabe thumbed through the notebook slowly, looking over at the guitar. Ever-patient, beat-up old thing. Just like his brain, and his heart. They kept taking the abuse he threw at him and waiting him out.

There might be a song in that metaphor, too.

**

Being an awkward, unsigned singer-songwriter was way different now than in the late 90s. He set up a Soundcloud page in half an hour, and then stared at it for another three before admitting to himself that no actual audio content was going to go up there to accompany the picture of the back of his head silhouetted against a window that he'd made Ricky take on his iPhone the last time he came over for Shabbat dinner.

Gabe thought it looked artsy. Ricky thought it looked stupid. That meant it was perfect.

He didn't link the page anywhere, just left it to exist. 

The next day, he picked up his guitar.

Maybe this was doing things backwards, but it just felt like what he needed to do. A place to put the music, so he could tell himself that no matter how hard writing it was, no matter how hard playing it was, and no matter how agonizingly fucking hard _recording_ it was, he had to do it so he could put some content on that stupid Soundcloud and justify its existence. He couldn't let that half an hour and Ricky's whole button-click of effort go to waste.

It was still a month before he got a demo put together that he was willing to upload. And it was still fairly shitty, recorded there at his desk in his way-less-than-acoustically-sound bedroom. But it was a song. Written, played, and sang by himself. Going out there to exist. 

He emailed the link to everyone he was sure was still speaking to him, and a handful who were maybes. He knew how to potentially create buzz around himself better now than in the late 90s, too. For one thing, now he actually had the connections to make it happen, if they didn't think the song sucked.

He didn't send the link to Pete, but he thought about it. 

He'd been thinking about Pete the whole time, honestly. There was no point in even pretending that he hadn't been. Thinking about Pete when he asked Ricky to take the picture, thinking about him while he set up the Soundcloud, thinking about him while he painted the fucking house. Thinking about him while he lay in bed at night, stretched out on top of the sheets sleepless and aching in his chest for no good reason.

He thought about Pete constantly. That couldn't last forever. In time it had to fade. But for now... for now it was a constant slow burn in the back of his head. 

Pete had said no, and Gabe was going to prove that he was a better man now than he was before. He was going to respect that no. Even if it was possibly going to kill him. He would get another couple of songs out of the subject before he went.

**

Diego brought in the mail every day after work, followed by a little ritual where Gabe edged the volume on the TV louder and louder while his father narrated his thoughts on each piece of mail. Credit card offers, grocery-store fliers, charity solicitations, the gas bill--

"And this is for you, Gabriel. It's heavy."

Gabe hit mute and looked up. "What?"

"This is addressed to you." Diego held up a cardboard mailer, stretched tightly around its contents. "The return address is in Chicago. Who do you know there?"

"Nobody who would be sending me anything." Gabe frowned and held his hand out. "Give it here."

"What is the magic word?"

"I'm not a toddler, Papi."

Diego frowned at him. "You still can show manners." 

Gabe knew when he couldn't win. "Lo siento. May I have it, please?"

"Better." Diego handed it over and tossed the rest of the mail into the bin next to the table. "I must invest in a shredder. These credit card offers never stop."

Gabe found the tab and ripped the mailer open, revealing a thick stack of paper. He frowned at it, easing it out of the cardboard shell and flipping it over so he could see the front. 

_Car-Crash Hearts_ said the type at the center of the page. There was smaller text below. _Draft 1. By Pete Wentz. The story of a kid and how punk rock saved him._ In pen over the words "punk rock" it said "Jersey." 

Gabe stared at it for a long moment, rubbing his fingers over the added word. He could see the outline of a colored post-it note through the page and turned the sheet, blinking hard. The post-it had been written on in the same pen, the same hand. 

It said _Maybe?_

"What is it?" Diego asked from the kitchen. "Do you want pasta for dinner?"

"Sure. Yes." Gabe turned the next page. _Chapter One_. "I think it's a book."

"A book? It did not feel like a book."

"The manuscript of a book. It's not done yet."

"How exciting. Reading a book before it's done."

"Yeah. Yes." Gabe stared at the page, trying to make his eyes focus and actually comprehend the words. "I think I'm going to go upstairs and start it right now, actually."

"You can't wait until after dinner?"

"Papi, I think... I think this is important." A secret message. Codes and whispers in every page.

"More important than dinner?" Diego sounded pained. Gabe took a deep breath, but his father cut him off, waving a hand at him. "I know, I know, I have heard it all before. Go and read your book. I will save a dish for you in the refrigerator."

"Thank you." Gabe fled to his room. Whether he was getting his hopes up or having them dashed, he wanted to do it in private.

Three hours later he had a couple of papercuts, a headache, and his hopes were still somewhere in limbo. The book didn't completely make sense. What he could pull out of it, though...

Well, it was enough to have him reaching for his laptop and booking a plane ticket to Chicago.

**

The return address on the envelopes that brought the receipts and index card took him to an utterly nondescript office housing something called the Carrollton Agency. The woman in charge politely informed him that they handled Mr. Wentz's business correspondence and that it was completely against their policies to even consider giving away any information about where Mr. Wentz lived or might be found that day. Also that Gabe should leave. Immediately. 

He exited the office with grace and dignity instead of putting up a fight, but only because he had a plan B. Plan B featured hailing a cab and handing the driver the mailer that had carried the manuscript to New Jersey. "Can you take me to the return address here?"

The driver squinted at it for a moment. "That's a ways out in the suburbs. It's going to cost you."

"That's fine. I just need to get there. What kind of area is it?"

"The suburbs. I just told you."

"I mean, is it offices, or apartments, or, like, strip malls? What is it?"

The driver looked at him like he was an idiot. "Residential. Residential with a decent amount of money."

"Oh." He hadn't really read Pete as a guy who owned a house, much less a nice one, but what did he know? Some people put their money in real estate. Those people were quite possibly considered smarter than people who put their money into vegan restaurant and financing their bands. Or even people who invested in expensive shoes.

It was a quiet drive, soundtrack provided by NPR. Gabe stared out the window most of the way, trying to figure out what the fuck he was going to say when he saw Pete.

_I've come for you._ Vaguely threatening. _So I'm pretty sure I love you._ Too much. _I read your book._ Stating the obvious, but it would definitely break the ice. _I read your book. Have you listened to my songs?_ Too needy. 

The second line was always the hardest for Gabe to come up with, whether he was writing a song or getting ready to throw himself on his knees.

The house was _very_ nice, with landscaping and shit, and didn't fit with Gabe's image of Pete at all. He sat in the cab, behind a black BMW and a little Civic, and only _then_ did it occur to him that maybe he didn't know Pete as well as he thought he did, or at all.

"Fuck," he muttered, banging his forehead against the back of the driver's seat. "Fuck me."

"Buddy, are you going to pay me and get out of my cab, or are you going to talk to yourself?"

"I might have made a huge mistake."

"If I'm taking you back to the city, say so now, before I turn the meter off."

"I don't have a hotel or anything."

"That's not my problem."

Fucking cabbies were the same everywhere. "Okay, look, just... give me a minute."

"Meter's still running."

"Yes. Thank you." Gabe stared at the front door. Only one chance at this. One chance to be brave. "Stay here while I knock. If he's not here, then I'm definitely going to need a ride back."

"It's your money."

Gabe flipped him off as he got out of the cab, but with his hand inside his jacket pocket. He might really need that ride back.

When he rang the bell, he could hear it _echo_ inside. This house had a fucking foyer or something.

The door swung open and he found himself looking at Pete.

"Gabe." Pete stared up at him, his mouth falling open. "How did you..."

"I read your book." First line successfully executed. And then his mind went blank.

"Oh." Pete blushed, looking away from him. "Oh. I sort of thought maybe..."

"What?"

"That you'd throw it away without reading it, or it would get lost in the mail, or... I didn't let myself think about if you actually read it." He ran both hands through his hair, then over his face, peering at Gabe between his fingers. "I have no plan for this."

"I don't have a plan either." Gabe reached out and touched his hand, peeling his fingers back from his face. "Pete, I..."

"Gabe."

"I came here to see you."

"Um." Pete's face scrunched in confusion. "Obviously?"

"Fuck. You know what I mean." Gabe blew out a sharp breath. "I came here to _see_ you. To talk to you. About that maybe."

"My note. That maybe?"

"What other fucking maybe would I mean, for the love of..." Gabe took another breath. He was going to hyperventilate and pass out on Pete's porch.

Pete's mouth twitched. "You should pay your cab driver."

"Are you _laughing_ at me?"

"No! No. I'm laughing at... everything. Pay your driver."

"In a minute." Gabe shook his head and stepped forward, catching Pete's shoulders and pulling him in close. "In just a fucking minute."

Kissing Pete was just as satisfying as the first time. Maybe more, because he waited a full minute and Pete never tried to pull away.

"We should take this slowly," Pete said when they finally broke apart. "You know. Baby steps. Learning about each other."

"Yes." Gabe nodded. "Absolutely. That would be smart."

"Yeah." Pete leaned in and kissed him again, his hands clutching at Gabe's wrists. Gabe lost track of how long this kiss went on, distracted by the taste of Pete's tongue and the feeling of Pete's shoulders under his hands, the little shivers running through him.

"Really slow," Gabe murmured. "Like. Dating. No touching until the third date, or whatever."

"We're already touching."

"So we should stop?"

"You should pay your driver." Pete took a deep breath and stepped back. "He's getting out of the cab."

Gabe couldn't turn away. "I'm kind of afraid to take my eyes off you."

"I won't go anywhere. I promise." Pete smiled at him, wide and bright and gorgeous enough that Gabe believed him.

When the cab left, Pete was still standing on the porch, leaning against the door frame and watching Gabe with intent eyes. "What now?" Gabe asked, trying not to wince at his own stupidity. What now.

"Come in. We'll talk."

"Talk or make out?"

Pete laughed and shook his head. "We need to go slow, remember? We just agreed on that."

"I kind of got distracted by the kissing."

"Me too." Pete licked his lips and then looked away, gesturing through the doorway. "Come on."

"This is quite a house," Gabe said, following him through the entryway.

"It's my parents'."

"You live with your parents?"

Pete shrugged. "It made sense to stay here between clients, you know? More sense than paying rent on somewhere I wasn't living most of the time."

"Hey, I've been living with my dad. No judgment here."

Pete hesitated a step. "Still clean?"

Gabe met his eyes. "Yes. No slips."

Pete's smile started off small, but grew likethe sun. "I'm glad."

He led Gabe to the living room or the den or whatever might be the word for a big space full of overstuffed chairs and couches. "You want something to drink, or eat, or anything?"

"No." Gabe sat down on one of the couches. "Sit, please?"

Pete perched on the edge of the cushion like he might fly away. "So I'm taking a break. From the companion job. While I sort some things out."

"What kind of things?"

Pete shrugged again. "You, mostly."

"And writing a book."

"Yeah. Well. That was a technique I was using to sort you out."

"Did it work?"

Pete pursed his lips, then laughed. "You're here, aren't you?"

"I am." Gabe took a deep breath. "I'm really terrible at going slow."

"I figured you might be."

"I can, if you really need it, but... it's not my inclination, I have to say."

"What is your inclination?"

Gabe looked at him for a minute, then leaned in and cupped Pete's face in his hands. "More of this."

Pete closed his eyes and nodded, his lips parting, and Gabe fell into another kiss.

"We can't hook up on my parents' couch," Pete gasped after a while. "If we're going to do that we need to go to my room?"

"Where's your room?"

Pete pressed his face against Gabe's neck. "Upstairs. So much for going slow, huh?"

"I told you."

"I can't do it either." Pete pulled away and stood up, offering Gabe his hands. "Come on."

**

There was a Midtown poster hanging over Pete's bed. "That's the first time I've ever had sex while looking at myself," Gabe said afterward, wrapping his arms around Pete's waist and pulling him close.

"You've never had sex with a mirror by the bed?"

"No. Have you?"

"Once or twice."

"We'll have to save that for another time." Gabe closed his eyes and breathed Pete in. "For the record, I wasn't actually paying all that much attention to the decor while we were doing that."

"Thanks. I appreciate it." Pete reached back, rubbing blindly at Gabe's side. "Do you really think we can make this work?"

"Honestly?"

"Yeah."

"I have no idea." Gabe kissed the back of Pete's head and held on tighter. "But I really, really want to try."

"Me too." Pete yawned. "I think I'm going to pass out."

"That's fine with me." Gabe looked up at the poster again while Pete drifted off in his arms. He could get used to this. The best second chance he ever had.


End file.
